


Bleeding Love

by Daretodream66



Series: Bleeding Love [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Awesome Howling Commandos, Bucky is a born vampire, F/M, Fluff, Graphic violence isn't too graphic, Howard is confused, M/M, Major Characters don't stay dead, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Team, Steve and Commandos are made vampires, Super Soldier Serum, Team as Family, True Love, Vampire Bites, Vampire Family, Vampire Turning, blood bonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25680004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daretodream66/pseuds/Daretodream66
Summary: Bucky is a born vampire and Steve is not.  They go to war, just like in the movies, but with a twist.  This follows them through the war and Part Two will take place after 2002.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter/Tim "Dum Dum" Dugan
Series: Bleeding Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1862125
Comments: 38
Kudos: 125





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've never done a vampire story before! I made some changes to the lore because it's my story and I can do that. In this, the Barnes family are born vampires. In my head the great-great-grandpa that's mentioned is Vladimir and he's from Romania. (HA) Anyhoo, they don't have to drink blood all the time, they can go months without it if they have to. They mate through a blood ritual and can't turn anyone without permission, unless they're mating. They aren't undead, have a pulse, breathe, and all of that good stuff, but when they get to a certain maturity, they stop aging. Also, once someone is turned, the whole family can feel that someone new has "joined the family." Now, on with the show...or train wreck...it could go either way.

Colonel Phillips was a strange old bird. Whether he liked you or hated you it was anyone’s guess, but he was thorough. The journal that Tony’s holding wasn’t part of the original files, but something personal that Howard kept. It’s the little reference to James Barnes that makes the hair on the back of the billionaire’s neck stand up. The official report says that James Barnes went off the side of a train and died, but the journal says that he was with Captain Rogers on the last mission. Somewhere between his official report and this journal, there was a decided cover-up. 

Just from this journal, Tony has gathered that there were a lot of cover-ups with the Howling Commandos. Mission reports never talk about injuries to any of the members, like they were invincible. But in this journal there are notes about blood covered clothes and a decidedly close relationship with the group. Something in all of this is not kosher and Tony wants to know what the hell it is. Digging for hours, he tries comparing the reports from everyone from Phillips to Carter to his own father. They were definitely covering something up.

That thought bugs Tony for hours, but when it comes to him, he spins on his heels where he’s been pacing the lab. “JARVIS, show me the photos from the Project Insight mess.”

The photos come up and Tony enhances one showing the insignia on the arm of one of the ‘intruders’ arms. Sitting back in his chair with a hand over his mouth, Tony’s eyes get huge. “Holy shit!” Leaning in, he makes sure he’s seeing this right. Manipulating the image, he chokes on a demented chuckle. “This isn’t possible.”

Pulling up everything he has on the Howling Commandos, he starts searching death certificates. Hours pass and by the time he sits back in his chair again, as crazy as it is, he’s sure he’s figured it out, but no one in their right mind would believe him. “They aren’t dead.”

1931

Bucky’s been sitting next to Steve’s bed for days. Sarah comes in now and then to check on them both, but Bucky doesn’t move. She has to leave soon for work, but knows that Bucky won’t leave his best friend. Coming in, with her coat already on and her purse over her arm, she kisses her boy’s forehead, feeling the fever ravaging his body, and then kisses the top of Bucky’s head. “You keep watch for us both tonight, yes?”

Bucky’s voice is weak and distraught because she’s readied herself for the inevitable. Bucky knows that she believes her son will be dead by morning. “Yes ma’am.” She kisses his head once more and turns to leave.

Stopping at the door, with her back still facing the room, she whispers, “He’s not like others. He’s never been strong like the rest of us.” Bucky hears the front door close and wants to rail against this world; a world that doesn’t see Steve Rogers as the strongest person that Bucky’s ever known.

He’s got a decision to make and he can’t do it without Steve’s permission, so he kneels next to the bed, taking Steve’s hand. “Hey punk, I need you to wake up just for a minute. Please Steve, please wake up just for a minute. I promise you can sleep again, after.”

He doesn’t think his friend can hear him, but finally Steve’s eyes flutter open, looking blankly at the ceiling, then over at Bucky. The smile he gives is weak and his eyes are glazed over. “Looks…like I…won’t…get outta…this…”

Frantic because if Steve’s giving up, they don’t have time. “I need you to listen to me and I need you to understand. Can you do that?” Steve gives a jerky nod like it hurts to move. “I can help you, but I need your permission to do it.” Bucky lays his head on their joined hands. “I’m not like you Steve. Never have been. It’s supposed to stay in the family, but you are my family.” Looking up, he sees that Steve looks confused, but Bucky doesn’t have time to explain.

Steve’s next words sound stronger. “You mean the blood stuff?”

Bucky’s eyes go comically wide. “You knew?” Getting up he crosses the room. “You knew and still wanted to be my friend?”

Steve turns his head with some difficulty. “Yeah, I knew. W-what d-do you m-mean, y-you can h-help me?”

“It will just take a drop, just one drop and I can heal you. It won’t do anything else to you, but just make you well.” Bucky goes back, kneeling again, taking Steve’s hand. “I can’t do it unless you tell me it’s okay. I can’t lose you, Steve. I just can’t.” His eyes fill with tears and he cries into their joined hands.

“Okay Buck.” Bucky’s eyes fly up to his friend’s. 

Running from the room, Bucky finds Sarah’s sewing kit and an extra needle. Coming back into the room, Steve is staring unseeing at the ceiling, he blinks when Bucky sits on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry it has to be like this, but you’re going to have to drink it.”

Steve blinks again, looking up at Bucky. He gives a weak smile and nods. “It’s okay.”

Bucky pricks his finger, pushing the blood to the surface. The drop is a little bigger than he means for it to be, but Steve reaches up. Offering his finger, Steve wraps his lips around Bucky’s finger and sucks. “There you go.” Pulling his finger back, Steve licks his chapped lips. “Now, you’re going to sleep for awhile and I’m going to stay right here with you.” Steve closes his eyes and gives a minute nod. Reaching over, Bucky runs his hands through Steve’s sweaty hair. “There ya go, punk. I’ll be right here when you wake up. I’ll always be here when you wake up.” Hanging his head, Bucky cries and hopes that when Steve comes out of this, he doesn’t remember anything. The last thing that Bucky wanted was to have to do this, but he’d do anything for Steve. His mom calls it _sufletul legat_ , Bucky calls it true love.

July 4th Bucky and Steve sit at the end of the dock waiting on the fireworks to start. Steve hasn’t been sick since that bout in January and Bucky thinks that it might be because of the blood. Steve hasn’t brought it up and neither has Bucky because if the blond doesn’t remember, that’s for the best. The sky gets darker as they talk about nothing and everything. When the first of the light show starts, Steve leans back on his hands with the pinky of his right hand touching the pinky of Bucky’s left. At first it seems like an innocent, accidental thing, but then Steve hooks his over Bucky’s like he means for it to be there. That’s when Bucky knows that Steve is trying to tell him something. Since that night in January, Bucky has been very careful around Steve, but just like always, Steve pushes his way into Bucky’s life like he always has. Steve turns, looking over his shoulder and Bucky mimics the movement trying to figure out what his friend is doing. When he turns back, Steve is looking at him.

“Bucky, I’m gonna do somethin and it won’t happen again unless you want it to.” He’s about to ask the blond what he means when Steve leans in and kisses him.

Jumping up, Bucky rushes away, stopping a few feet away. “Steve? What was that for?”

Steve looks up at the sky as another explosion happens. His shoulders are drawn in and his voice is shaky. “Let’s just forget that it happened and enjoy the fireworks.”

Bucky goes back over, squatting down. “No, let’s not. Tell me why!”

Steve sniffles and Bucky can see the tracks of tears on his face. “Because I love you and I can’t help that I feel that way. I’m sorry, Buck. Please don’t leave me.”

Sitting back down quickly and pulling Steve into his chest, he whispers into his best friend’s hair. “I couldn’t leave you cause…I love you too. It’s why I had to save you that night. I had to Steve.”

1941 (autumn)

Bucky looks up from the table and sees an angel. His angel. “Steve?”

Steve’s eyes are tearing up. “I thought you were dead.”

“I thought you were smaller.” Bucky looks up and down his friend’s body and can’t reconcile what he’s seeing.

They make it out with the help of close to 400 men and make their way back to camp. Bucky’s dead on his feet and would like to sleep for a week, maybe two, but he’s got to get answers to what he’s seeing. It’s well after midnight when Steve finally returns to their tent. Steve had made it very clear that Bucky would be bunking with him and not with the rest of the men. There were a few raised eyebrows, but no one said anything.

The lamp is off and Steve can see the outline of his friend, back to the flap of the tent, but he suspects that Bucky isn’t sleeping. His voice answers that question for Steve. “You gonna tell me how this all happened?”

Steve sits on the other bunk, untying his boots. “It was an experiment and I let them use me as a lab rat.” He strips out of his clothes for bed and lays them over the footlocker at the end of the bunk.

There’s a chuckle as Bucky rolls over. “What about all of your illnesses?”

“Don’t have’em anymore. The serum fixed all that.” Bucky pushes himself up to a sitting position with a little difficulty.

Steve knows he needs to eat soon. “They put something in me Steve. I don’t feel the same.”

Steve rushes to him and kneels on the floor taking Bucky’s hands. “What do you mean?”

Bucky slides down onto the floor and into Steve’s lap. “I heard them say something about a serum, not sure. I was pretty out of it.” Bucky snuggles into him. “You’re so warm.”

Steve chuckles at that. Reaching up, he pulls the collar of his shirt aside. “You need to eat, Buck.” Bucky doesn’t seem to want to lift his head. “Come on love, you need to eat.” Bucky leans up, licking up Steve’s neck and sinking his teeth in. He immediately feels warmth overtaking him. Steve’s been his only source of food for years, but this is different. He hasn’t eaten in months and Steve tastes so good. A little different, but still so good. He doesn’t know how long he drinks, but Steve’s pale by the time he pulls back.

“Fuck!” Grabbing the knife from the crate acting as a bedside table, Bucky cuts into his forearm. “Drink damnit!” Steve grabs his arm. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

Steve doesn’t stop drinking and Bucky doesn’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late. Steve looks up at him, glassy eyed like that night so long ago, but this time it isn’t from illness. The next thing Bucky knows, Steve’s kissing him, hungry and feral. “Bucky…need…god…now…please…” It clicks into place and Bucky knows what he’s done. This was never supposed to happen, but if it has, they have one chance and only one chance at this.

Bucky’s going to hate himself in the morning for this, but he can’t resist Steve, never could. They’re stripped down and on each other in seconds. For comfort sake, he takes Steve the first time from behind, so they can cuddle after. As they lay in each other’s arms, Bucky blinks back tears. There’s only one thing that would make this perfect and he’s going to go for it because he’s always wanted this, but never had the courage to ask. “Steve?” He gets a hum and whispers in Steve’s ear. “I bond myself to you in all that I am and will become. We are one and share all with the other.”

Steve looks over his shoulder at Bucky and smiles sweetly. He knows those words because Becca told him what the bonding was like. Without blinking or thought he answers Bucky. “I bond myself to you in all that I am and will become. We are one and share all with the other.” Steve’s eyes flicker a brilliant blue that matches Bucky’s for just a split second.

It doesn’t stop with just that one time, Bucky takes him again three more times that night and each time it seals the bond even more tightly and Steve’s eyes change permanently into a sharper blue than before. By morning, Bucky’s still exhausted, but wrapped in the warmth of his mate. 

“You awake?” Steve hums and pulls Bucky closer. “We have to talk. I let something happen that I didn’t intend.”

“You mean the blood bond…yeah, know all about that.” Bucky lifts his head, glaring at Steve. “Becca told me about it, years ago. She said I was already marked and wondered when you were going to make the bond with me.”

“When we get home, I’m gonna kill her.” His teeth are clinched and sees Steve grinning. “You…did you…was last night planned?”

Steve chuckles and kisses his mate. “Yes, I did it on purpose because I was tired of waiting for your slow ass to get with the program.”

“You’re a little shit.” Steve let him drink until he was near death to force Bucky into acting.

“But I’m your shit now, Barnes. You claimed me and everything.” Bucky buries his face in Steve’s neck and can smell it in Steve’s blood. 

“I didn’t…if you…”

“I swear to god, Bucky if you try to make it sound like you forced me, I will kick your ass! I’ve wanted this since I was 14 and now, like it or not, we’re as good as married within the family.” He feels Bucky nip his neck with his fangs. “Oh.”

“I don’t regret this. I just regret that I can’t give you a ring or somethin.” Steve laughs. “What?”

Sitting up, he looks down at Bucky and looks absolutely blissful. “Someday, we can do that, but knowing we belong to each other is enough.” 

Steve’s body is still changing, so they sleep for the rest of the day. They will have to talk about this more and Bucky will have to explain that Steve will need to drink too, but for now, he’s just going to sleep in the arms of his husband. He has no idea how the change will affect the serum that’s in Steve’s system now. One thing is for sure though, Steve will be something different from anyone else in the family.

1942 (spring)

It’s raining again and everything is wet. It makes the trek to the Hydra base especially difficult, but a mission is a mission. In the last few weeks, the Commandos have been noticing the connection between their Captain and Sergeant is…different. None of them can put their finger on what it is, but sometimes it’s almost like they can read each other’s minds. There are looks amongst the group, but no one says anything.

The rain lets up just before dusk and they set up a make shift camp. They can’t start a fire because it will give away their position, so they set up tents and decide who’s sleeping where. Peggy looks at her tent, set up next to Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes. “I do believe I’ve drawn the short straw.”

Dum Dum looks over, not smiling. “What do you mean, Peg?” She glares over at him. “I’m sorry, Agent Carter.”

“Well I do hope those two will keep it down tonight.” It’s the first time that anyone has broached _that_ topic. She doesn’t say anything else and goes into her tent. After the raid they will stay in this location for a few days awaiting extraction.

The accident that night is just that, an accident. Jones goes to get water from the river and slips. They hear him yell and run to give him aid, only to find him impaled on the branch of a fallen tree. Denier is at his side in an instant, begging him to hang on. They get the branch out, but he’s quickly bleeding out. Everyone is telling him to hang on, but they all know that he won’t survive the wound. Steve pulls Bucky aside and they start having a whispering fight.

Finally, Steve pushes Bucky over and he orders the other men out of the way. Bucky looks down at Jones, smiling and lets his eyes change colors; Gabe’s eyes widen for a second, then he gets drawn into the color. The thing about being a vampire is that all eyes are blue. Steve’s have gotten sharper in color, but not the way that Bucky’s are almost iridescent. “I need you to listen to me. Can you do that?” Jones nods, staring frightened, shaking from pain and blood loss. Bucky’s eyes are so pale blue that they almost seem white. “Okay, I can heal you, but with the amount of blood lost already, I have to turn you to save you.” Jones shakes his head, but it’s lack of understanding and not refusal, so Bucky lets his teeth out. “You won’t age, you won’t get hurt and if you do, you’ll heal almost immediately. You won’t be a monster, that’s not what I am. I’m giving you this choice, but I can’t do this unless you give me permission.”

Jones nods almost instantly. “Okay.” Bucky can see in the man’s eyes that he doesn’t want to die, not like this.

“It’s going to sting, but that will fade really fast.” Bucky nods and gets another nod from Jones in return. “Okay.” Bending over the man, Peggy starts forward, but Steve’s hand on her arm stops him.

“No Peg.” She frowns up at him, but holds her ground. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes and then Steve carries Jones back to camp putting him in their tent. “Get some water, I’m going to clean him up while he changes.” Peggy hands over a canteen, schooling her face with all the questions she wants to ask. Steve and Bucky stay in the tent with Jones for hours and when they come out both seem content.

Later that night, Jones is still sleeping off the transformation and the rest of them sit around what would be a fire, but it’s really just logs around a central pit. It’s Dum Dum that asks. “You going to explain what we saw back there? What are you, Sarg?”

Bucky looks up, sighs and reaches out for Steve’s hand, he interlaces their fingers. Their Captain takes the hand of his mate and starts, but it’s less of an explanation and more of a plea. “When this mission is over, any of you that want out of the unit are free to leave, but I have to ask you to please keep what you’ve seen to yourselves.” They don’t meet his eyes. He knows that means that some of them are already trying to figure out how to leave the unit without raising eyebrows. “There are a lot of things in this world that we don’t understand or even know about. I’ve been Bucky’s friend since I can remember and this is something your born as or made through expressed permission, not something made by hell. Vampires aren’t evil. All of you know him, you’ve served with him and you know that he’s an honorable man. To turn someone means making them part of our family. They only turn those that are…important.” At the word vampire the group seems to lean away.

“Barnes?” Peggy looks over the pit at him and Bucky looks up. He’s not ashamed of what he and his family are, but he doesn’t want to lose this group that he’s become so close to.

“My family is the only family like this. It’s a…gift from my great-great-grandfather.” He runs his hand, that’s not holding Steve’s, through his hair. “It’s just what we are. We don’t attack people, we’re not monsters. We live a peaceful life, we love, we get married and have kids. We aren’t dead…or undead. Although, we do have a tendency to be a little colder than normal. All that Hollywood crap has made us seem like monsters, but that’s all fake nonsense. _We aren’t monsters_.” Steve squeezes his hand in support.

Looking up at the group, Steve sighs. “I’m not a monster either and we both care about all of you. I’ve been this way since November and in that time all I want to do is protect all of you. That’s why I had to get Bucky to save Gabe.”

Peggy asks what they all want to know. “Is Gabe going to be one now?”

Bucky gives a sob because it was never his intent to alienate this group, but he sees his friends slipping away. “Yes, but he gave me permission. We can’t turn anyone unless they do. He’s not going to wake up tomorrow and be ravenous, but he probably will want to eat.” Monty clears his throat, catching their attention. So far from home, Bucky connected with this group, they became the family he was missing so much. Vampires can’t survive without family, they need that connection. When Steve had shown up, everything was right in Bucky’s life again because Steve has been his family since they met.

“How do you eat, Sarg?” Bucky looks up at Steve and his mate nods.

“Steve feeds me when I need it, which isn’t too often. And I feed him when he needs it which is a little more often.” Peggy slaps her thighs. “And before one of you tries to delicately figure out how to ask, Steve is my mate and part of my family. Jones will be family now too. It’s just how it is. When we turn someone, they are family. We protect them like they are blood because they are. For as long as the family remains, he will have a place that’s safe and people that love him. We can’t be without family.”

“So how did you survive so long being over here if you can’t be without family?” Dum Dum still looks suspicious, but also interested.

Bucky lets the tears flow because he’s just too tired to hold them in. Steve leans over, kissing his temple not caring anymore what anyone thinks. “I bonded to all of you. It wasn’t the same, but close enough that it kept me healthy.”

“How have you been eating?” Morita doesn’t seem disgusted, just really, really curious.

“I didn’t. We can eat and drink like you, but blood is…necessary, but if it’s not available we can be sustained by regular food.” That seems to surprise the group and Steve is watching where Bucky can’t and he sees how that information and that about the bond of family has swayed some of them.

“Steve, what does he mean you’re his mate?” Peggy seems very interested in that part of the conversation. She’s been flirting with Steve for months and he’s kind about it, but never really responds the way she hoped.

“Well, he means that…we’re basically married. Any one of you can turn us in and we’ll be blue ticketed home, but we’re telling you this because we trust you.” He takes their joined hands and pulls Bucky up. “We’re going to go check on Jones and then go to bed.” 

Once in their tent, Bucky throws himself into Steve’s arms. “What are we going to do if they turn us in?”

Steve holds him close, kissing the side of Bucky’s head. “We’re going to leave and not look back. We’ll go home and let the family hide us for as long as it takes. I’m not losing you, Buck. You’re everything I ever wanted or needed. We’ll have to take Jones with us too, but he’ll understand once he wakes up.”

“I love you, Steve. I don’t know how to live a life without that.” Looking up, he meets Steve’s eyes.

“You’ll never have to.” They check Jones one more time and then cuddle up in the other sleeping bag, arms and legs tangled together, both hoping they won’t have to run the next morning.

The Howlies decide to wait until morning to make a final decision, until Jones wakes up. They talk the whole night and the only one that isn’t completely on board is Dum Dum. He makes a big show of being accepting, but in truth, all of this goes against everything he believes to be good. He watches the tent all night, wondering what will happen with Gabe. They don’t even know how to kill one of these things. Peggy watches him all night and just before dawn, she sits next to him. “You’re having trouble with all of this.”

He doesn’t smile, which is so unusual for him. “Yeah Peg, I am.” She doesn’t correct him for not using her title. They are in uncharted territory here and they really are friends. Even when he uses her name, he’s still one of the most respectful men she’s ever met. Lowering his voice, he wants only her to hear. “We don’t even know how to put one down if we have to.”

The tent flap opens and Bucky comes out. Looking at Dum Dum he seems close to tears. “You cut off our head. We can’t come back from that.” He goes over to inspect his pack and Steve exits the tent too, frowning at Dum Dum and Peggy.

Steve and Bucky are checking weapons and the schematics of the base, keeping away from the group. They left Jones in their tent to come to grips with what’s happened, but when he finally comes out, it’s Denier that notices. “Juste ciel, your eyes.”

Jones looks around confused and panicked. Steve goes over to settle the man. “It’s okay, it’s normal.” Jones looks over at Bucky, in confusion. “Your eyes aren’t the same.”

“All vampires have blue eyes, just different shades.” Bucky doesn’t go towards Jones because he doesn’t want to alarm him. After their talk this morning, Gabe has a better understanding of what happened. He’s unsure, but he doesn’t blame Bucky for saving him. Looking at the group, the men that were his comrades and friends are watching him expectantly. Peggy pulls out a compact and hands it to him.

Jones looks at it and can’t help the laugh. “I expected to wake up and want to drink blood, not have blue eyes.” That’s the strangest part, he isn’t hungry for something that he’s never had. He feels…like himself. He still has a pulse, he still knows everything he did before, he’s not a monster. 

Peggy thinks about Steve and Bucky’s words the night before. “So, you don’t feel the need to…”

“Bite anyone?” Dum Dum watches him closely and Jones grins. He looks over at Steve and Bucky and can feel their connection to him and many others that he can’t explain.

“No, but I would like some food.” He looks back into the mirror. “Thank god I’m still black.” There’s a frozen moment of uncertainty and then the men around him start to snigger when he grins at them. As he eats, he looks over at the man that made him this way. “Sarg, I can feel you and Cap, but there’s others that I can feel too. What is that?”

Bucky comes over and Gabe nods his okay for the man to sit. “That’s the family, our family, your family. Everyone in the family can feel the connection.”

“Does that mean that he’s married to you too?” Bucky looks up, eyes comically wide at Monty’s words.

Gabe coughs on the bite he just took and looks up horrified. “Oh hell no! Being alive is great and all and you two do whatever you two are going to do, but I’m not interested in that!” Gabe looks really disgruntled that he’s suddenly expected to be a part of some weird marriage.

Bucky and Steve cackle at that. Steve is clutching his chest and Bucky is waving his arms around. “No, no, no, that’s not what…just no.”

Steve comes over, sitting with Gabe and Bucky. “There’s a whole other process for mating and that’s not what this was. Being part of the family just means that…it’s hard to explain.”

“Well try, man because this is the only part that’s really freaking me out!” Gabe sits his plate down to wash later.

Bucky gets his giggles under control. “Okay, so we explained that this is only my family like this.” Gabe nods. “And all the connections you feel are all of us, everyone. You know they’re there and they know you’re here. It’s just to let you know that you aren’t alone.” Bucky looks over at Steve smiling. “Steve and I are mated and that’s completely different. He and I can…communicate with each other.”

Dum Dum sits down across from them. “What will happen to Jones when this damn war is over?”

Bucky grins. “Well, he can come home with us and there will always be a place in the family for him or he can go about his life somewhere else. This isn’t a captive situation, Dum Dum. We don’t force anyone to do anything. That’s why I had to ask permission before turning him. No one is ever forced. My aunt’s husband never wanted to be turned, so she didn’t. He grew old and died a natural death. We can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do.”

“Well then that’s not much of a family is it?” The mild comment breaks the ice and everyone starts laughing. For the first time since all this happened, Dum Dum chuckles at his own lame joke.

They go over the plan and head towards the base. Monty, Denier, and Morita question Gabe all the way to the ridge above the base. Dum Dum walks with Peggy and although they aren’t talking, they do seem to be having some silent conversation. Steve and Bucky lead the team. When they reach the ridge, Steve raises his hand and closes his fist indicating for them to stop and stay silent.

Steve sees the trucks at the gate, being allowed in. “The shipment just arrived and we have to make sure everything inside the base and those trucks is destroyed.” They all nod. “Everyone does their job and we’re back at camp by nightfall. And this time, we get to light a fire.” There are smiles.

Everything about the mission is planned down to the last detail. Everyone is in position and it’s going swimmingly, until the Hydra weapons are destroyed and the enemy has to use regular guns. Dum Dum and Peggy have just finished destroying all of the trucks when the shot is fired. Bucky is still on the ridge, using his sniper skills to keep his people safe when Dum Dum screams into the radio. Steve and Gabe keep everyone at bay while Morita runs for Dum Dum’s position. Morita looks up at the ridge and back at the other two. Peggy is pale from blood loss and nods, but Dum Dum, who is equally as pale from fear, shakes his head.

Morita, gets on the radio. “Change of plans, Sarg, we need you down here…NOW!”

Bucky is there is an inhuman amount of time and looks at the scene. “Peggy is down. I repeat, Peggy is down.” The fighting doesn’t stop and Bucky looks up at Dum Dum and Morita. “You gotta give me cover if she gives me the okay.”

Dum Dum, who is still holding Peggy with his hand over the wound in her neck, looks down at her. “Don’t leave me, Darlin. You gotta hang on.” For the first time, Bucky understands. Dum Dum may not like what he is, but he also doesn’t want to lose the woman that he loves. 

“Let me have her and you two make sure no one disturbs us.” Dum Dum hands her over and gets up to finish this fight. Bucky looks down at Peggy smiling and lets his eyes change. “Hey Pegs, you know I can’t save you if you don’t want me to. You tell me what you want, but you gotta know that man loves you and would be heartbroken if you left us.” She’s shaking now, bone deep violent shaking. “Do you want this?”

The nod is shaky, but determined. “not…dying…l-like this.”

“Thada girl.” Bucky lets his teeth drop and doesn’t waste any time. Again, because of the amount of blood loss, draining her almost to the last drop doesn’t take much time. Using his knife, he cuts into his wrist. “Drink as much as you need, sweetheart.” She takes his wrist, drinking her fill, which isn’t as much as Gabe took. 

He hears Steve’s voice from the radio. “Bucky? What happened? Is she…”

“She’s okay…or she will be soon. How long to the detonation?” Dum Dum is back at his side in no time.

“We’ve got three minutes to get out.” Steve sounds worried, but doing okay. Everyone comes back to Bucky and Peggy’s position and Dum Dum picks her up, running towards the gate. The base goes up in explosions and flames as the team makes their way back to their camp. They don’t stop until they’re back and Dum Dum puts Peggy in her tent, but doesn’t leave her. They start a fire and drag out cans of beans for dinner. Dum Dum comes out at some point, sits next to Bucky, and offers him one of the taller man’s coveted cigars.

“Thank you.” Bucky leans over, taking the offered light and grins up at Dum Dum.

“You gonna tell her because that was some romantic shit back there, man?” Dum Dum bumps Bucky’s shoulder, but doesn’t answer. He may not have understood before, but Dum Dum knows that this man just save that woman and he can’t repay that. Peggy wakes the next morning, goes to the river to wash the blood from the gunshot wound and looks at herself in her compact. Her eyes are a mesmerizing shade of indigo. All those connections that Gabe talked about live in the back of her mind now and pull at her sternum. She has family, a real family and since the loss of her brother, it means more than she can ever tell the man that did this to her.

They arrive back at base two days later in high spirits. Colonel Phillips looks them over spending extra time looking at Peggy and Gabe because their clothes are covered in blood. They claim that it isn’t their own, but something in his eyes looks at them critically. The group prepares themselves for an interrogation, but it doesn’t come. The Colonel just nods and walks away. Their real issue comes when Howard joins them for dinner that night in the mess. The Commandos always sit a little apart from everyone else, but Howard is part of their group, so he’s always welcome. 

Looking over at Gabe, Howard’s eyes narrow. “What happen to your eyes?”

Gabe stutters for just a second, then grins. “Oh, I tripped and fell.”

There are snigger from the rest of the group. He’s about to ask further when Peggy stops him. “Now Howard, are you telling me that you’ve just noticed the color of Gabe’s eyes?” She tsks several times. “For a man that likes to call himself observant, I’m concerned.”

His eyes widen. “What the hell, Pegs? Yours aren’t right either.”

“Oh well, I was bitten by a strange little bug while out on the mission. Oddest little thing I’ve ever seen.” She winks over at Bucky and the table falls into loud guffaws of laughter.

Howard knows he’s not going to get a straight answer out of the group, so he lets it go for now. On their way back to their tents, the group stops looking at the set up. Steve and Bucky share a tent at the edge of the base, Peggy has a tent that’s near theirs, but the rest are not close enough for comfort because the Commandos tents are on the other side of the base. It doesn’t feel right because what happened out there, it’s all of them now. They protect each other and those that have a secret to keep. Before the night is over, they’ve dismantled their tents and moved them closer to their commanding officers. It’s like a little compound all its own.

“Do you think anyone will say anything about this?” Monty sits next to Gabe at the fire they’ve created in the center of their private little village.

“If they do, we’ll just tell them this builds morale.” Dum Dum hands his flask to Peggy who takes it, drinking and passing it on.

Steve looks at Bucky and leans in to rest against him, shoulder to foot. “We’re going to be okay. All of us are going to be okay.”

Bucky takes a deep breath. “Yeah, but you know there are letters on their way here because they’ve all felt this back home.”

“Yeah, but they’ll be glad that you could bring people into the family that are so good and decent.” Steve takes a chance and leans in kissing Bucky lightly. What they get is a lot of sarcastic ‘awwws’ from the group. “Shaddup you assholes.” Their laughter can be heard all around the camp.

1942 (Winter)

They’re in a burned out town in France, but some of the buildings are still usable. Monty and Gabe do some recon and come back with information that an Inn is still standing. It doesn’t have power, but it still has beds and running water. That’s enough for the team to believe in Christmas.

Steve and Bucky take a room on the top most floor so they can keep a look out, just in case. It’s not much, but they find they can bathe by heating the water in the fireplace and filling the tub. After bathing, they wash out their clothes and hang them near the fireplace to dry. Everyone seems to have the same idea because everyone is wrapped in blankets when they descend the stairs to share a meal. 

Bucky and Steve shared a ‘meal’ in the tub earlier, so they eat the food, but not as much as usual. Gabe and Peggy grin at them because they know. After dinner, Dum Dum follows Peggy back upstairs and that’s how the group finds out that he’s been feeding her. “Huh…I did not see that coming.” Gabe looks over at Bucky. “Will that do anything to him?”

Bucky shakes his head. “She doesn’t know how, so no.” He doesn’t elaborate and takes Steve’s hand leading him back up the flights of stairs to their room. When they are out of ear shot of Denier, Monty, and Morita, Bucky whispers. “If she takes too much I’ll have to heal him…”

“Don’t worry about that, Buck. She’s a smart lady.” Bucky nods, then pushes Steve into their room. Closing the door, he drops his blank. Steve drops his own and goes to his husband, engulfing him in a hug. “I love you.”

“It’s a good thing, punk, because you’re stuck with me forever.” Steve leans back, grinning like a maniac. “You really do like that don’t you?”

“Damn right I do.” Steve embraces him again, rubbing up and down Bucky’s back. “The thought of forever with you makes me keep going every day.”

Bucky barks a laugh. “No, your piss and vinegar attitude keeps you going every day.” Steve squawks at that and hoists Bucky over his shoulder and carries him to the bed.

Later that night, Bucky goes out onto the roof, looking over the village. He knows that Gabe and Peggy are out there patrolling, but he just wants to see what’s around. Two streets over, he finds a building that’s still intact and goes in. He can’t really tell what the business used to be, but after inspecting some of the equipment, he concludes that it was maybe a metal shop. In the back room of the shop he finds materials that he could swear are gold and silver. The spools of the materials aren’t any wider than thin yarn. Looking more carefully, he decides that this place must have been a jeweler of some kind. 

Grinning, he puts his torch on the table and measures out what he thinks he will need. Three strands of the gold and three strands of the silver. A noise up front startles him and he turns his torch off. The door swings open and Peggy is standing there, gun raised. “What on earth are you doing, Sergeant?” 

“Uh…nothing, just looking around.” She can tell that he’s hiding something, but doesn’t push. “We should get back.” Nodding she follows him out. Once everyone is sleeping, Bucky stays downstairs and starts braiding the threads together, using his utility knife to knot them together when he’s done. Slipping one onto his finger, it’s a little too big, so he knows it will fit Steve. The silver one fits his finger perfectly.

“Bucky?” Steve descends the stairs and finds his mate sitting at the table. He goes over, sitting down facing him. “What are you doing?”

Bucky looks up and catches Steve’s eyes in the firelight. He’s so beautiful that it makes Bucky lose his breath. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. I knew when we met that you would be my mate some day and here we are.”

Steve blushes and it makes Bucky smile brighter. “What’s got you bein all poetic tonight?”

Bucky gets up, kneeling in front of Steve. “I want to marry you.”

“Well we kinda already are.” Steve chuckles making Bucky smile up at him.

“Yeah, but I wanna do the whole thing with you.” He offers up the ring that he made for Steve. “I wanna exchange vows and eat cake and have a honeymoon.” He waggles his eyebrows at Steve.

Steve bursts with laughter and awe at the ring. “Where did you get these?” Bucky explains the store he found and the little bit of remaining gold and silver. 

“Marry me, Steve.” Steve cups his cheeks, pulling him up.

“In this and every lifetime to come. Yes, I will marry you.” Their kiss is soft, gentle, and a promise.

The group notices the rings, but doesn’t say anything about it. They figure when the two are ready, they’ll let them in on what it means. They don’t know that the night before, the two men exchanged vows and promised all of their tomorrow’s to the other. They don’t know that Bucky looked into Steve’s eyes and saw a future more beautiful that anything he’s ever imagined. They don’t know that these two men, who have known each other so long they truly are two halves of the same whole, exchanged the words taught to Bucky by his great-great-grandfather again. Words that link two vampires together with a bond that can’t be broken.

“What time will the Resistance fighters be here?” Steve looks over at Peggy because she’s the one that contacted them about taking out this Hydra base.

“The last communication we got said 6, but it’s 4 now and they were making good time. Unless they ran into some trouble, they could be here before.” Steve nods and they break off into pairs to patrol.

What happens later that night no one saw coming, not even the French Resistance that brought the man in with them. By the end of the night, there’s one dead ‘Resistance’ fighter, who turned out to be a mole, three other fighters wounded, Peggy with a hole through her arm, which is already starting to heal and Denier and Morita in an upstairs bedroom with critical wounds. Monty and Gabe are trying everything they know to get the bleeding to stop.

“We’re going to lose them both if we don’t figure out how to get the bleeding to stop!” Steve is watching in horror as Peggy jumps in to help.

Stepping away from the door, Steve heads downstairs and finds Bucky having an argument with the woman that brought the group in. “I don’t give a damn how sorry you are. Tomorrow morning, take what’s left of this group and get out of town.”

“And you expect to take this Hydra base without us?” She’s smirking at Bucky and Steve can see that his husband is about to backhand her across the room and steps in.

Steve glares at her. “Don’t take an attitude with us, you’re the one that brought your mole right into our camp. Get your people together and be ready to get out in the morning.” They head up the stairs together and Steve turns back to her. “And yeah, we can take the base alone.”

When they get to the bedroom Dum Dum is crying. “What happened?” Bucky looks terrified into the room and reaches out for Steve’s hand.

“They aren’t going to make it.” Dum Dum leans against the wall.

“Like hell they aren’t!” Bucky storms into the room, eyes flashing. “Which one is worse?” Monty points at Denier.

Bucky kneels next to the bed that Denier is on and starts to reach up, when Denier’s hand comes up, patting Bucky’s cheek. “Do it.”

Bucky sniffles. “Are you sure?” 

“When you’re done with me, bite him too.” Bucky looks over at Morita who is giving a jerky nod.

With everyone sitting on the floor of the bedroom, they wait out the night and the change for both men. Bucky’s weak by the time he’s finished and leans heavily into Steve. “Sweetheart, you need to eat.” It’s just a whisper for Bucky to hear, but the room is so quiet that everyone picks up on it. This is the first time that those that haven’t been turned have seen the process.

“We should go…” Bucky is cut off by Dum Dum’s hand on his arm.

Monty looks over at them, smiling. “Well it seems to me, mate, that we’ve seen how it works, so eating something to keep your strength up is a good idea.”

Steve pulls Bucky in with a hand gently grasping the back of the man’s neck. He kisses Bucky’s temple and whispers, “You did the right thing.” Bucky doesn’t move except for a weak nod. “With all that I am and all that you’ve made me, I will love you all of my days.” With no other words, Bucky leans in, nipping cautiously at Steve’s neck, then sinks his teeth in. Steve’s eyes flutter shut.

They return to base three days later and report to Phillips and Howard. Again, Phillips looks them over and they know he has questions, but he doesn’t say anything. Walking away all he says is, “Good work, fellas.”

Howard, on the other hand, looks at Morita and Denier. “Okay, so did the two of you trip or get bitten by something?”

Gabe slips his arm around Peggy and she rests her hand on Dum Dum’s shoulder. They all wait to see what will happen next. Morita reaches out, giving Howard a playful shove. “You know how it is Stark, when you spend a lot of time with people you care about, you start to look like them.”

Peggy buries her face in Dum Dum’s bicep to keep from barking out a laugh, but that doesn’t stop anyone else from chuckling. Howard looks frustrated to the point of having a mental breakdown. “That’s pets you idiot! Now what’s really going on?”

Denier turns to leave throwing a comment over his shoulder. “Must have been those weird Hydra weapons. We did get caught in some crossfire.” Howard just huffs as the team makes their way to the mess for dinner.

Part way through the meal, they all look at each other. “He’s not going to be held off too long. At some point he’s going to want a better answer.” Bucky looks around worried.

“Come on Sarg, as long as we keep bringing down Hydra bases, he’s not going to care after awhile.” Steve nods along with Morita’s words, but still worries that Bucky is right.

Spring 1943

The Howling Commandos, led by Captain America, become the single most lethal unit in the United States Military. When they go out, no matter the mission, they complete it without fatality. Colonel Phillips knows something is up with them, but he’s not going to ask because the job always gets done. There are rumors of something strange about the connection between the members of the group and when Phillips wants to add people to the unit, Steve refuses. Howard continues to try to figure out what’s happening with their eyes, but never gets a straight answer.

“Does anyone else think we’re lost?” Bucky turns to frown at Morita.

“We aren’t lost, we’re just…”

Steve looks back at everyone. “We’re lost.” He’s looking around at the terrain and sighs. “We were told the base was in a valley after the second ridge, but that was three ridges ago.”

Monty comes forward. “Why don’t Agent Carter and I have a look around and see if we missed something?” Steve nods and the two head off.

“Let’s go ahead and set up camp. Even if we do find it, it’s too late now. We need to wait for the next shipment and that won’t be until tomorrow.” No one questions the plan and tents are set up and wood is gathered for a fire. 

It turns out that they are within a mile of the base and this time it isn’t just a ‘get in and destroy’ mission, this base has intel that the Allied Forces need, so they have to set up charges as well as get into the inner offices. Monty goes in with Gabe to find the commander’s office and pull the files they need. The problem comes when they find out the hard way that the commander of the base has an attack dog. As the man tries to escape through a secret door behind the book case, Gabe goes after him leaving Monty to deal with the dog.

He’s got it blocked using a chair, while gathering the files, but the dog breaks through and goes for Monty’s neck. Gabe finds him on the floor, covered in blood. The dog comes for Gabe too and the vampire makes eye contact with the beast and it cowers under his gaze. Dogs cower to an alpha and in this case, Gabe is definitely the alpha. Getting on the radio, he calls for Barnes. 

Monty is unable to answer or even nod because of his injuries, but he squeezes Bucky’s hand. The trip back to camp is difficult, but by morning Monty is his old self and gives enthusiastic thanks for Bucky for understanding that he was giving consent. On the way back to base, they play a game of tag in the trees. The speed and agility of the vampires makes it more of a game of trash talking than anything else.

Howard is beside himself with frustration at the group now. It seems that almost every time they go out, one of them comes back different. “Be straight with me, Falsworth, what happen to your eyes?”

He pulls Howard in, like he’s going to tell him a secret. “I’m pretty sure I contracted rabies, Stark.”

Summer of 43

It’s hotter than hell and nothing can make that any better. They haven’t had any missions lately, which truthfully would help with the heightened tempers. They’ve been training and playing pick-up games of baseball, but nothing can quell the tempers when it’s so damned hot. Steve gets pulled into a meeting that’s the last thing he wants to be sitting in, but he’s even more concerned about the WAC officer that keeps putting her hand on him. He gets that she’s flirting, but she doesn’t get that Steve isn’t responding.

“Captain Rogers, you really should come out with me tonight. I’m oh so good at dancing.” As she says the words, she’s walking her fingers up his arm. He gets the distinct impression that she’s not really talking about dancing.

“Yes ma’am, I’m sure you are, but I’m not. Please excuse me.” He makes his way across the base to his tent where he finds Bucky, shirtless sitting outside. He moans at the sight and Bucky’s head comes up with that devilish smirk.

“See somethin you like, Rogers?” Steve flops down next to him.

“Better than that woman that couldn’t take no for an answer in the meeting.” Bucky’s quite a bit more alert at that piece of information.

Bucky leans in to whisper in his husband’s ear in that deep, husky tone that sends shivers down Steve’s spine. “Want me to make you forget about her?”

Steve does visibly shiver at the idea. “You talk to me like that and you won’t even have to touch me.”

Bucky cackles at that and is still in his fit of mirth when Peggy comes jogging over. “Dum Dum is in the infirmary.” They don’t even ask, just run for the hospital tent. He’d been complaining for a few days that he didn’t feel well, but everyone just thought it was the heat. Two weeks prior they’d been on patrol and Dum Dum had taken a graze in the thigh from a rusty nail. The buildings they were clearing weren’t anything dangerous, so he’s done a quick spit clean and went on about the patrol.

As they run in, the rest of the team is standing back as the doctor tries to calm him through a seizure. His back is arched and his eyes are rolled back in his head. Peggy turns to Bucky, burying her face in his neck and sobbing. “What the hell?”

The seizure slacks off and the doctor turns to the group, shaking his head. Steve steps over, grabbing the doctor’s arm. “What’s happening?”

“Mr. Dugan came in a few days ago with spasms in his jaw. Last night it locked up and he’s been seizing since this morning.” The doctor looks over at his patient. “I’m afraid he’s got lockjaw and he’s too far gone to use the vaccine. I’m sorry, Captain Rogers, but if you want to talk to him, you need to do it now. He won’t be with us by morning.” Peggy’s sobs get louder at that.

Steve looks at the group and they all know that Tim wasn’t every going to say yes to Bucky, so this is their last chance to be with him. “Can we have privacy?”

The doctor nods and nurses bring in screens to surround the bed and team. Steve looks at each of them and then turns to Bucky. Bucky pulls up a chair and sits next to their friend. He takes Dum Dum’s big, paw of a hand in his own and leans in. “Dum Dum? Hey man, can you hear me?”

Dum Dum’s eyes flutter open and he sees Barnes. He can’t talk and can barely move, but the nod Bucky gets is clear. Bucky looks at the rest of the group and then up at Steve. Steve kneels down next to the bed. “You know what we’re asking, Tim. Are you sure?”

He gives a quick nod again. Bucky looks around. “I need your eyes on the rest of the tent. Once I start, I can’t stop, so you have to make sure no one comes near.” He turns back to his friend and lets his eyes flash and fangs drop. “It’s going to be okay. This won’t hurt.”

A nurse tries to come over and as much as Steve doesn’t want to do it, he knows he can distract her long enough for Bucky to finish, so he sidetracks her with a complaint about his stomach. Once he removes his shirt, she’s completely focused on him and not whatever his happening behind the curtain. Bucky comes out, smirking at Steve, who blushes ridiculously, but he knows that he gave his husband time to do what needed to be done. Peggy stays with Dum Dum through the night and when the man sits up in bed the next morning, looking like nothing was ever wrong, the doctor calls it a miracle.

Winter of 44

This might be the most important mission that the team has been on. Stark tries to get Phillips to send more than just the Commandos, but the Colonel looks over at the team and shakes his head. “They’re the best team for the job and they don’t need anyone else getting in their way.” With that he’s gone and Howard looks at the group.

Everything in the inventor knows that there’s something about this team that isn’t…normal, but they won’t give him anything and Phillips won’t question them on it. So, he gears them up and sends them on their way. “I just wonder if maybe we should have just told Howard what’s going on.”

Steve looks over at Peggy. “I thought about that too, but then it means entrusting him with a secret that could get him into trouble later.” She nods and heads out of the tent.

Bucky looks up at him. “Is that the only reason?”

Steve doesn’t look up from the map, so Bucky knows it’s something else. “That’s part of it, but he’s also a scientist and I don’t want to be a lab rat again.” They curl around each other that night, holding on tight. “Becca wrote again.”

Steve kisses Bucky’s chest and nuzzles against him. “Oh yeah, what did she have to say?”

“She’s worried for all of us mostly. She wants us all to come home safe.” Those are the most prophetic words once the mission starts. Originally, Peggy wasn’t suppose to go, but Steve told the higher ups that he wouldn’t do this without her. Once on the train, it was her job to secure Zola. Everyone had a job to do and if they did, everyone would come out alive and safe.

They weren’t expecting the side to be blown out, they weren’t expecting Barnes to go out the hole, and they weren’t expecting for Steve to lose himself in his instincts trying to save his husband, but that’s what happens. Bucky picks up the shield to fend off the Hydra soldier and the soldier fires a shot that ricochets off the shield and into the side of the moving train.

Bucky gets sucked out and Steve screams in a primal way that resounds through the connection with the team and all the way back home. The team freezes for a slit second and Monty and Denier run for the box car their leaders are in. Instead of doing this the planned way, the team unlocks the abilities that they keep on lockdown around others. The Hydra soldiers have no idea what’s happening because they can’t see their attackers. 

By the time Monty and Denier reach the correct car there’s a path of destruction in their wake. Steve’s outside the car, trying to reach Bucky, who is just barely hanging on. They use their combined strength to edge Steve closer to Barnes. They all lay on the floor of the car breathing deeply, more from fear than exertion. The team finds them there with Zola in tow, cuffed and looking like he’s seen a ghost. They make it back to base, turning Zola over and filing their mission reports. Phillips gets word through back-channels that the train arrived at its destination and the only living person on the train was the conductor. Whatever really happened on that train is not in the reports and he doesn’t ask.

That night the team sits around the fire, in their small camp on base, and stare at each other. None of them feel bad for what happened on the train, they are all trying to deal with almost losing Barnes. Steve looks haunted and won’t let go of Bucky’s hand. It’s finally Dum Dum that speaks. “Sarg, we can’t do this without you. Today was too close.”

The shaky sob that comes out of Steve, lets the rest of them know that he’s still got the image of his mate hanging from the side of the train flashing in his mind. “It wasn’t my idea for that to happen. I’m sorry that all of you had to deal with that.”

Steve finally speaks up. “I’m sorry that I flooded the connection that way.”

Morita leans over, sitting a gentle hand on Steve’s knee. “You thought you lost him. None of us have a problem with that.”

Gabe nods along with everyone else and adds, “It also allowed us to help, knowing that you were in trouble.”

Bucky looks up at Steve and can feel how distraught his husband is. The only thing that helps in a situation like this at home is to enforce a Gathering. He sends a mental picture to Steve and waits for it to sink in. When it does, Steve throws his arms around Bucky and nods into his shoulder. Getting up, he pulls at the connection between everyone in the group. Growing up, Bucky had only experienced this twice, but Steve needs this tonight and he’s going to give it to him.

Steve and Bucky’s tent is bigger than the others, so each one of the Commandos go to their own tent, grab blankets and pillows and enter the tent of their commanding officers. It’s a tight fit, but somehow they all know what needs to happen. Call it companionship, call it team building, call it family, but that night they all sleep in the same tent, huddled against each other and sooth the abstract connection with a concrete closeness.

Steve wakes the next morning and feels content again. He sits up and looks around at this group that’s become a figurative and literal family. Bucky’s eyes blink open and he nods at Steve. The super soldier leans back down with a quiet, “yeah.” 

There are strange looks from passing soldiers as the Howling Commandos all come staggering out of Captain America’s tent for breakfast. To pacify the connection that morning, the group fed before leaving the tent. It had simply become normal to not hide that facet of their lives from each other. And even though Steve and Bucky shared in the intimacy of feeding from each other’s necks, the rest shared from forearms. It just seemed on this particular morning, after sleeping in close quarters to save Steve’s mind from spiraling out of control, the Commandos reaffirm their family bond through blood.

Late Winter of 45

“The intel is solid and we’ve got to send in a team to stop it!” Steve watches as Colonel Phillips starts to lose his cool with the other ranking officers. He doesn’t lose his cool often, like ever, but Steve sits back and watches it happen. Once he’s made his position clear and motions for Steve to follow him into another office. “Rogers, you and the rest of your team are going in, but you aren’t going in alone. I’m sending three units with you, but you are in command. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes sir, we won’t let you down.” Phillips is putting a lot of trust in Steve and the Commandos and for someone that didn’t really like him in the beginning it’s the Colonel’s way of saying ‘do a good job.’

“You haven’t yet.” With that, he’s gone and Steve goes to check the maps again so he can make sure that his men are ready.

They come out of the forest before dawn as the fog covers their advancement. They take the base and Steve and Bucky go after Schmidt in hopes that they can beat him to the plane set to take off. Getting on the plane isn’t easy, but goes about as well as it can considering that Peggy is driving like a maniac. Schmidt fights them, but ends up disintegrating right before their eyes. During the fight, the plane got way off course and something knocked a hole in one of the fuel tanks when they were coming up from the hold.

Looking at the controls, Steve can’t figure out where they are and Bucky is trying to see how much fuel they have left and if there’s a place to land anywhere nearby. Once Steve knows where they are, he looks up at Bucky and his mate, his husband, his love shakes his head. “Stevie…”

“Oh…god…Buck, you gotta get off this plane!” He stands in a panic as the radio starts to crackle.

“Steve! Bucky!” Peggy’s voice is hysterical in a way that is not Peggy Carter. They know they’re in trouble when she says ‘Bucky’ and not ‘Barnes.’

Steve picks up the radio. “Hey Peg.”

“Boys, you have to land that plane.” There are voices behind her and they know, without asking, that it’s their family.

Steve looks up at Bucky and they exchange a look, one that accepts what they have to do. “Peg, you and the boys listen.” She tries to break in, but he stops her. “No Peg, you gotta listen. There’s nowhere to put it down safely. We got off course and lost a lot of fuel, so it’s got to go down.” There are cries of ‘no’ coming from the team. “We don’t have a choice.” Bucky takes his hand and he keeps talking. “When this war is over, you and the boys go to New York. The family will be waiting and they’re going to want to hear from you…about…about this.”

“Steve…” She’s crying now and Bucky’s willing to bet that she’s not the only one.

“We’re together, Peg. That’s all we could ever hope for in this war. I can’t live without him and he can’t live without me.” He looks up and Bucky’s crying too. They neither one thought it would end like this, but they have each other. “Now, we gotta find a place that’s safe to take this thing down just in case the bombs go off. Peg, you take care of them. Those boys would be lost without you.” He cuts the transmission because he doesn’t want them wasting their breath trying to talk them out of something that can’t be undone. 

Steve looks up at Bucky. The look of love that he’s getting is…endless. “Come on, Love.” Steve sets the course that Bucky gives him, sets the autopilot and takes his husband’s hand.

They huddle near the navigation platform. Steve braces himself against the side and pulls Bucky into his lap. Kissing Bucky’s head, the brunette looks up and smiles. “Don’t let go of me.”

“Never.” They get one last kiss in before the plane hits and the engines start to melt the thick sheet of ice. “I love you!”

“Always.”

Summer of 45

They’ve been cleared to return home and board one of the last ships headed back to America. Peggy can’t leave them, so she sends word to her people in England that she’s going with her ‘friends’ to the States. They’ve become so much more than that now and she feels the pull to go with them to meet this family that lives in the back of her mind. The connection is there and all of them need to go _home_.

They aren’t expecting for the majority of the entire Barnes clan to be waiting at the dock when they arrive, but the closer they get, the stronger the pull becomes. “They’re waiting for us.”

Peggy looks up smiling weakly at Dum Dum. “Yes, I can feel them too.” She leans into his side and the rest of the group comes over, just to be close. “I wish we could bring Steve and Bucky home to them too.”

“We all do, darlin.” As they disembark from the ship, they don’t even have to wonder where the family is, they are pulled to them like magnets.

They are pulled into hugs and given reassurances that they are welcome and loved. Winnie, George, and Becca Barnes are the most welcoming and hug them tightly for a little longer than any of the others. Winnie brushes the hair back from Peggy’s face, wipes away the tears and smiles. “It will take time, but we’ll all get through this together.”

Most unexpectedly the Howling Commandos are given apartments in buildings that the Barnes family has owned for generations. In fact, they find out that one whole city block is nothing but brothers, cousins, sisters, parents, grandparents and more. It’s difficult, but they settle in with this group of people that they just met, but feel they’ve known for years. For a time, they don’t know what to do with themselves, but soon, the family lets them into the workings for all the businesses they have a hand in.

Peggy sits with Becca, shelling peas weeks after they settle in. “You’ll get used to it.” Peggy looks over at Becca not really confused, but interested. “When someone is first turned the abundant number of connections can be overwhelming, but all of you got used to it from a distance. We can’t help but love you and I know that love can be too much sometimes.”

Peggy smiles, resting her hands in the bowl in her lap. “I didn’t expect it to feel this…good. Being here, I mean. I just wish we could have brought them home to you too.”

Becca huffs a chuckle. “They’re together and that’s all any of us can ask for.” Peggy does look confused at that. “When something happens to our mate, it’s crushing. Like a hand literally reaches into our chest and squeezes our heart until it can’t beat. Those two were meant to be, it was a connection they had even before the exchange of blood. Even our great-great-grandfather didn’t have an explanation.”

“Soul mates.” Peggy goes back to shelling the peas.

“Yes, that’s what we all believe, so if they are together, then it’s going to be okay.”

Peggy stares out at the setting sun. “I’m not sure it will ever be okay.”

Spring 1947

Howard Stark and Colonel Phillips create SHIELD and call on the Commandos occasionally to help them with situations. Their identities are kept secret from the government because Howard doesn’t want them on the radar. The Commandos think it’s better if they work in secret for the family’s sake.

January 1955

Howard marries a lovely girl names Maria who wouldn’t give him the time of day for months. She, even at the tender age of 23, wasn’t going to be another notch on his bedpost. She is smart, funny, cunning, and talented and Howard falls head over heels for her. It makes the Commandos laugh, but they celebrate when Howard and Maria get married. At the lavish reception, Peggy finally gives into the building feelings she’s had for Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan. They dance the night away and leave the other Commandos cheering, “Finally!”

Later that year, in a quiet ceremony, they marry and on their wedding night, with advice from Becca they mate. A few mornings later, Dum Dum comes into the kitchen to find Peggy hanging up the phone. “Mrs. Dugan, I woke up and you weren’t there.”

His arms slip around her waist and she leans back into him. “I’m still going by Carter and you know it.”

“Ah yes, I do, but in the privacy of our home, I’m going to call you Mrs. Dugan.” Turning in his arms, Peggy smacks him in the chest. Leaning up, she kisses him.

“That was Howard. He wants to search for the plane.” Dum Dum looks at his wife and can feel her pain. “I think we should help.”

“Then we help.” Howard searches for years, but doesn’t finds the plane. He does find a cube and it’s sent to the SHIELD bunker where he plans to figure out how it works. 

Winter 1991

“We have to take this one because no one else is!” Morita raises his voice, but not in anger, this is fear.

“And we are taking this one, but we have to wait until we know where this is going down.” Monty is trying to be the voice of reason, but even he’s anxious about this.

“GOT IT!” Marty stands up from the computer after having delved into the dark web to get the information. The internet is relatively new, but those with vile intent have learned how to make it work for them. Aunt Lorainne’s son has been a godsend as far as tech, but the rest of them are picking it up pretty well too. Years ago they had to stop relying on Howard and claim retirement because they aren’t aging anymore and he still is. So, they turned to those in the family that had the skills and still take on missions when necessary.

They’ve been with the family for decades and have found, in that time, that each of them brings something different to the table. Peggy has taken on the leadership role for the Howling Commandos and no one thought to argue against it. She’s level-headed and precise in her decisions on what they should help on and what they shouldn’t. Months ago Marty brought them something that they couldn’t ignore. Someone is going after Howard and he’s finally narrowed it down to a general date. They can’t take the chance of contacting Howard and have him change his plans or worse still alert the people going after him that they know.

The team can’t quite pinpoint who is going after him, but it’s a good chance that it’s a government entity. A few years back the Commandos started doing a little digging and found that some of what the US Government is doing isn’t on the up and up. There are times that the Commandos find themselves fighting Allied soldiers that have no idea that their orders are bogus. “Alright, gentlemen, we have a job to plan.”

By the time they find themselves on a deserted road just before Christmas, they’ve planned everything down to the last second, but if they want to catch the people doing this, they have to wait until the attack happens. The car crash is worse than they expect. Dum Dum captures the assailant before he can take anything from the car or hurt the Starks worse than they already are. The issue happens when they pull the two from the car and see the extent of the injuries. Both of them will die soon from internal bleeding and the Commandos can’t let that happen.

Peggy pulls her mask off to kneel next to Howard, who is hurt much worse than his wife. Maria looks over and her eyes widen. “Peggy?” All the masks come off then and Howard uses what little strength he has to look at his former colleagues.

Peggy’s never done this before, but she did learn from great-great grandpa Barnes. “Howard, I know you have a lot of questions, but we don’t have time for that. Your pulse is weak and you’re probably bleeding internally.”

He nods and looks over at his wife. “Maria?”

“She’s injured too, but you’re worse. Howard, we can save you, but we can’t do this without your permission.” He looks up into the face of his friends and back at Peggy. “Yes, if you agree, you’ll understand everything.” He doesn’t even have to think, but he does have to ask.

“Will you save Maria too?” Peggy smiles warmly and nods. “Okay, do whatever it is.”

After Howard is turned, Peggy goes to Maria who just nods and gives a weak, “Yes.”

Dum Dum is trying to get the assailant to talk on the other side of the car while Peggy takes care of their friends, but he just growls at the bigger man. Then Dum Dum lets his fangs drop and the man can’t talk fast enough. When he’s done spilling all that he knows, Dum Dum does what he has to do and snaps his neck. Members of the family show up not long after to clean up. The scene is set to look like the assailant died in the accident and the Starks car is set on fire.

They have to wait the change out until morning, but when the Starks wake, they look around at their friends and Howard starts to ask questions. “Before we answer those questions, we have to decide how to handle this situation. If whoever did this finds out that you’re still alive, they’ll come after you again.” He looks over at the briefcase they pulled from the trunk.

Howard looks at Peggy, then at Maria. “If they think I’m dead, they’ll leave my wife and son alone?”

“Yes, we believe so, but we will always watch out for them no matter what. You can feel the connection now, so you know, family is everything.” Howard and Maria walk through the garden at the Barnes Complex and talk about how to handle this situation. The decision is made and even though the couple cries together, they know what they have to do. With the help of the family, they set everything up. Maria Stark is ‘discovered’ in a hospital and tearfully tells the authorities that Howard died in the crash.

The following day, it’s announced that Howard Stark died when the car caught on fire. Maria was thrown from the wreckage and survived. A funeral is held and Maria holds her son as he cries for his father and after, they confine themselves at home for the next several weeks. Maria sets up an offshore account and funnels money into it for the Commandos to use for their missions and twice a month, while Tony is away at school, Howard goes to the house in the dead of night to see his wife. It’s not optimal, but it’s what they have to do.

Maria Stark takes over Stark Industries and quickly figures out what Obidiah Stane is up to and fires him immediately. A few months later, he comes to the house to kill her and finds Howard waiting. The man doesn’t see the sunrise. Howard doesn’t feel bad about the loss of a ‘friend’ and wishes that he’d been paying more attention to what the company was doing instead of focused on the serum.

“What do you want me to do with the company now that we don’t make weapons anymore, Howard?” Howard tugs Maria closer to him as they watch the fire in the fireplace. He misses her so much when he can’t be here and surprisingly, he really misses Tony. The kid is troubled, but he loves his son so much. If only he’d found a way to say that before all of this.

“I want you to make things that…I don’t know…make people’s lives better. Talk to Tony and see what the kid thinks about doing with his degrees. He’s going to take over some day and it should be something he’s proud of.” She looks up at her husband and smiles.

“You know, some day he’s going to realize that you love him.” That makes Howard sad in a way he isn’t expecting.

“Loved. I’m dead to him.” He doesn’t leave Maria for two weeks because that knowledge is too hard to carry around for a time.

Summer 2001

“I think we’re looking in the wrong place.” Becca is talking mostly to herself, but knows that Howard heard her. She turns in her seat in the control room to stare at the man. Ten years he and his wife have been part of the family and Becca still has trouble with his intent focus on whatever he’s working on. He gets so focused that the rest of the world fades away. “Howard…Earth to Howard.”

He looks up, frowning. “What?” That’s another thing that she’s not very fond of. He gets short with everyone around him when things aren’t going the way he wants. Lowering his head, he sighs. “I’m sorry, that was not directed at you.”

“I get that you’re frustrated, but they were my brother and brother-in-law, so if anyone should be getting upset, I’d think it’s me.” Turning back around in her chair, she taps the communicator in her ear. Howard’s mind is a wealth of tech that just needed an outlet. These tiny communicators are a miracle. “Captain, we’re going to be moving to the next grid point.” 

Howard comes over, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You make a good search companion.”

She grins up at him. “I have a question.” Howard nods. “Is it possible that they didn’t go down in the ocean? I mean, couldn’t they have gone down…say…in ice somewhere?”

Howard goes back to his maps and Becca comes up beside him, looking over the grid he created. He takes the last coordinates they had for the plane, measuring against where he found the cube, and looks at what’s between where they’ve been looking. That final transmission from Rogers and Barnes runs through his head. “Okay, let’s say they didn’t go down when the transmission ended.” He points at a set of coordinates that are marked in red. “This is when we lost contact with them.” He grabs a ruler and a black marker. “If they cut the transmission for some reason, but kept the plane up a little longer…” He doesn’t finish his thought and draws a line on the map.

“They cut the transmission because they were going to die and needed that last little bit of time with each other.” Tears gather in her eyes because all she wants to do is find her brother’s body and Steve’s body and bring them home.

Howard hugs her. “We need to get off the boat. I need to call the ground team in.” The ground team being the Commandos.

Late Spring 2002

“We’re going to need help.” Dum Dum looks up at the wing jutting out of the ice. It’s taken almost a year, but Howard finds the Valkyrie. The heat from the engines melted the plane into the ice and all they can see is the wing. It’s bigger than any of them realized.

The Commandos stand next to the wing in the new uniforms that Howard designed. The material keeps them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. They’re black from head to toe and each of them have a new, even smaller, com in their ears. “I’ll call the family.” 

It takes two weeks to get everyone and everything there that they will need. The only family members that aren’t here working the equipment are the ones that are too young and those that stayed behind to take care of the little ones. Winifred Barnes comes to Howard and hugs him. “You’re bringing our boys home. We’ve picked their plot in the family cemetery and we’ll bury them together like they wanted.” She kisses his cheek. “You’ve given us that, Howard Stark and we will never be able to thank you.”

“They deserved better than this icy grave, Winnie.” She nods and tears up. After all these years, they can bring the boys home. It takes another few days before they’ve dug out enough of the plane to get inside. The Barnes Clan works day and night because this is family and this is what families do for each other. Bucky and Steve may have died in this ice, but they will finally rest.

The Commandos go in first in case any of the weapons are still active, but quickly find that all of them are dead. Making their way carefully into the control compartment, Peggy buries her face in her husband’s shoulder when they find them huddled together, holding each other. Even in death, they cling to each other like they always did. Howard joins them next with a saw to cut them out of the ice. The shield lays to the side, unimportant in the final moments of their lives. If the team didn’t know any better, they’d swear they were just sleeping. Both men seem peaceful under the sheet of ice.

Once the family gets a moment to grieve, they load the ice onto the truck and the caravan of family makes their way back to the landing strip. Winnie refused to let her sons be put in the hold and Howard directs the others to put them in the main compartment where Winnie and George can sit with them. The flight back to New York isn’t long and when they get home, the boys are put in Howard’s lab until the ice melts. The decision is made that they will remain there until the funeral arrangements can be made with a family friend that will keep their mouth shut.

The Commandos stay in the lab, keeping watch. It’s the least they can do for the two men that gave them so much. Three days pass like this with family coming in to say their goodbyes. After the ice melts away from them completely Denier stands over the table saying a prayer. “Merde!”

The group sitting around the perimeter of the room, stand quickly ready to fight. “What? What’s wrong?”

They make their way to the table and see what their friend saw seconds before. Steve’s eyes are fluttering. “Oh my god! HOWARD!”

The man runs into the room from his office. “What?”

“I think…” Peggy looks up crying. “I think they’re alive.”

Within minutes, Howard has IV’s going and warm blankets covering them. Both men have started to move, muscle twitches, eyes lids fluttering, and short, sharp breaths. “What do we do?” Gabe looks up at Howard.

“We wait. I don’t want to call anyone else until we know for sure they’re going to come out of this.” It’s another two days of Howard telling the family that the ice is melting slower than they thought it would and hiding the fact that Steve and Bucky are alive.

When their eyes finally flutter open the first word from Steve’s mouth is, “Bucky?” It’s rough, like gravel, but still it’s the best sound the groups heard in a long time. Tears are flowing freely now and no one cares to try and stop.

Bucky first sound is a low hum as he snuggles into Steve closer. Peggy can’t help the burst of laughter. “Nice to know 58 years hasn’t changed them in the slightest.”

The celebration that happens when the family finds out is like Christmas, New Years, and Steve’s birthday combined. The boys have a difficult time with the fact that it’s 2002, but by the end of the year, they’ve acclimated to their new home. The team fills them in on Howard’s turning and how he and Maria decided to handle it. They catch up with the family they’ve missed and the new ones they haven’t met. But through it all, they cling to each other in a way that familiar to everyone.

They settle into a top floor apartment in one of the older buildings in the complex; one that the other Commandos also live in. Steve and Bucky find that they very much like the modern conveniences. They never seem to run out of hot water and they find a thing that Peggy explains is a dishwasher in the kitchen. Bucky decides it’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Steve snorts and reminds him that, “You love it because you never met a dish that you wanted to wash.” Bucky would frown, but it’s a true enough statement.

As they lay in bed weeks after thawing out, Bucky cuddled into Steve’s side, the blond’s arms around him, holding Bucky close, the brunette can’t help but laugh. “What?” 

Steve sounds amused and Bucky buries his face in Steve’s neck. “We made it.”

Steve barks a laugh. “Yeah, but the question is, what do we do now that we’re here?”

“Anything we want.” Bucky slides from Steve’s arms and climbs over him to straddle his waist. “But for now, I think I have something better to think about.” He winks down at his husband and leans in for a kiss.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story of the family continues and Tony becomes Iron Man.
> 
> Oh...MOANa stands for Mom's Own Artificial Nanny

Becca meets Ian Proctor in a series of unfortunate events beginning in 2003. Steve and Bucky have been home for less than a year and have not gone on any missions, but instead hang out with Howard in the lab. Bucky teases Howard constantly about getting old to which the gray-headed man usually flips him off. Steve just sits back until the two of them cross the line and then jumps in to play referee. It’s on one of these days that Becca comes storming into the lab, looking like a cat that fell into a bathtub.

“That arrogant son-of-a-bitch will rue the day he crossed me!” The three men in the lab freeze and forget whatever it was they were teasing about and turn to an obviously fuming woman. “If he thinks that he can just rearrange my syllabus because he thinks he has some claim to a time period that he didn’t even live through!”

Bucky goes over, hugging her and trying to get her to either calm down or make some kind of sense. “Take a breath and focus for me.” She wrenches out of his arms and glares at him. “Or don’t…that’s good too.”

Steve snorts behind him and Howard looks entertained. “I’ve spent all semester prepping for next semester because I’m covering Depression Era history and this arrogant prick wants me to do something else so he can talk about a time period he doesn’t really know anything about!” Her voice goes from guttural pissed to high pitched banshee. “Do you know, he was telling me that sugar wasn’t that hard to come by? I mean have you ever heard anything so ignorant in your life! We went years without it! Years!”

Bucky gives a small shrug and goes over, hopping up on the work bench. Steve comes over, leaning his back against Bucky’s chest and letting Bucky slip his arms around his waist and rest his chin on Steve’s shoulder. They may as well get comfortable because she’s not letting this go anytime soon. They spend the next, however long, letting her rant and rave her way to calm. Once it appears that she’s done, Howard grins. “Wow, I gotta tell ya that was impressive.”

Bucky jerks around and narrows his eyes at the man. “Do you _want_ to wind her back up again?” Howard just chuckles and goes into his office. Bucky looks back at his sister. “Do you want me and Steve to go beat him up? We will.”

Her shoulders slump. “No and I’m not changing my syllabus. It’s just frustrating that he’s everything I despise in other professors. I don’t think he even cares about his students, he just wants to make a name for himself.”

Steve leans back on Bucky’s shoulder. “You could just go see him and drop your fangs. Scare the living shit out of him.” Becca bursts with laughter and comes over to hug him.

“I missed you two so damn much.”

A few days later, Becca slams into their apartment while they are in a compromising position on the sofa. She covers her eyes and waves her hand around. “Jesus, you two! You have a bedroom for a reason!”

Bucky slips his short back on. “We have an apartment too! Next time wait for someone to come to the damn door, Rebecca.” She growls at him because she’s only called Rebecca when she’s in trouble with their mother.

Her growl gives way to a blush. “You’re right, but he’s at it again and I…”

“You wanted to come up and ruin the mood we have goin on. Yeah, I got that!” Steve’s covers himself with the quilt from the back of the sofa and wraps it around him to head to the kitchen and check dinner while chuckling which doesn’t seem to amuse Bucky one bit.

“You stayin for dinner, Becs?” Steve’s husband turns a glare on him. “What? She’s not leaving now that she’s here.”

Becca heads for the door, but Bucky catches her. “Stay for dinner and rant all you want, but please, for the love of god, could you knock next time.” She chuckles and nods and Bucky kisses her temple.

The next time, they’re at a bar down the street with the Commandos, who just returned from a mission. Becca comes in, asks the bartender for a bottle of bourbon and heads to the table. “My word, Rebecca Barnes, what are you doing?” Peggy watches as Becca takes a swig out of the bottle.

She slips into the booth and slams the bottle on the table. She’s way passed pissed off and Peggy tries not to grin behind her hand. Before Becca can answer, Howard adds his two cents. “Is this about that guy again? Could you just eat him or something?”

Everyone at the table barks with laughter. Gabe reaches over, settling a hand on her arm. “What guy? Who do we need to take out?” It’s become obvious that Gabe’s ability to calm people is a little more in the supernatural realm, but it’s part and parcel to the whole vampire thing.

Becca takes another drink from the bottle. “He had the nerve…the absolute gall, to ask me to dinner!”

The team falls into a fit of laughter and Becca keeps drinking. Finally, when Bucky has decided that she’s had enough to drink and will give an honest answer, he strikes. “So, are you going to go out with him?”

“YES! Goddamnit!

2004

“Steve, why don’t you want to go out with the Howlies?” Bucky’s laying across their bed, wearing nothing, but a smile and Steve is sitting in the chair by the window sketching him also naked as the day he was born. Steve looks up and Bucky smiles brighter. All he can think is how lucky he is that this beautiful man willingly gave himself to Bucky.

Steve puts the sketch pad down and comes over to the bed, crawling up Bucky’s body. Laying himself on top of his husband, Steve grins down at him. “Why would I want to go on missions when I can stay here and do this?” He leans in, dragging his fangs across Bucky’s neck causing a hitch in his breathing.

Bucky draws him up and just before their lips touch, he whispers. “Don’t answer my question with a question.”

Steve lays his forehead against Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky’s hands slide down his back just caressing. “I don’t know where I fit anymore. I’m not Captain America and I can’t really be Steve Rogers. Someone would notice.”

Bucky leans over, kissing the top of Steve’s head. “Then why not just be part of the Commandos again? We could wear what they wear. Faces and everything covered in black.”

Steve looks up. “You think Peg would mind if we joined?”

Bucky barks out a laugh. “She’s the one that brought it up to me and her exact words were, ‘when is he going to get off his arse, Barnes and do something.’”

“Your British accent is awful.” Bucky rolls them over and kisses Steve breathless.

“Then shut me up for a little while.” Steve waggles his eyebrows and does just that.

Winter 2004

After training together for months, Steve and Bucky are on their first mission with the Commandos. The new uniforms that Maria designed and Howard, with the help of Gabe and Monty, built do cover them head to toe in black. The material is something that Tony had invented for scientists that work in the arctic region. And that’s good because they’re in Siberia. Maria got the formula and handed it off to her husband, who again was immensely impressed with his son’s mind. “Is this some kind of hazing ritual? Did you drag us to the ass end of the planet to freeze our dicks off?”

“Language, you uncouth tosser!” Peggy smirks over her shoulder. “This is where the mission is, so this is where we go.” She sends a team through the front door and one through the ventilation system. There’s no air circulating, so they know that there can’t be many people here, if any.

They make it into an abandoned bunker and meet in the main chamber. Morita goes to the computer, which is old, but tries to boot it up anyway. “This stuff is ancient in comparison to what we have at home.” It’s a simple command prompt system and Howard comes over to look at the screen. Morita looks up at him when the screen flashes and yes/no command. “What is the Winter Soldier Project?”

Howard shrugs and takes over the keyboard. A few years back, Tony created an AI and Maria being the genius that she is, asked Tony to create a separate one for her use, but with all the intricacies of his JARVIS system. Tony create MOANa for her and when he explained what it stood for, Maria kissed him on the cheek and told her son, ‘I’m going to fire you one of these days.’ Tony found that hysterical, but MOANa stuck. She passed it along to the Commandos for whatever uses they might have for it. 

Maria made some modifications to the AI with Howard and Morita’s help, one being that anything the Commandos did with the AI, would never be revealed to Tony even if he accesses the system.

Howard places what looks like a bug on the side of the terminal. “MOANa, can you get into this system and find out what this bunker was used for?”

‘Of course, sir, but I must say, this system is barbaric.’

The team chuckles because the AI is so lifelike in her personality and they sometimes forget that she isn’t human. Peggy walks over, patting the terminal. “We know dear, but anything you can give us will help.”

What they find turns their world on end. The base is Hydra and they were still operational in the 90’s. Steve looks over at Bucky and the brunet can see the disillusionment on his husband’s face. “We went under the ice for nothing! Nothing!” Bucky’s got his arms around Steve before he can spiral. In a weak whisper, Steve burrows into Bucky’s neck. “I did that to you for nothing.”

Bucky nuzzles into Steve’s hair. “You did nothing to me. If I hadn’t gone down with you, my life wouldn’t have been worth living.” He kisses Steve’s temple. “Now, let’s figure out what all this means, yeah?”

Steve sniffles and nods. “Okay.”

They find references to files and go into a storage room with creeky, metal shelving and find the correct boxes. Dum Dum looks over at his wife. “Pegs, I think we have something here and it’s not good.” The box he’s holding contains a red journal and video tapes. They find a working machine and start at the beginning. It only takes a few minutes for them to realize what they have. Denier and Monty nearly gag at what they find and Gabe and Morita turn their backs on the screen. These soldiers, the ones that survived whatever knock-off serum Hydra was using, where tortured into compliance. 

Making their way through the base, they find the chamber with ‘the chair’ from the video. There are six cryo-tanks around the room, each of them containing the soldiers from the tapes. Peggy turns to the group. “We’ve seen what they can do and anyone that wants to wait outside is welcome to, but we can’t let these soldiers ever wake up.” They do what has to be done and take all the information that MOANa gathered from the antiquated computer system and the boxes, blowing the base to fiery rubble. On the flight home Steve leans over to Bucky so that no one else can hear. “Do you think that’s what they put in you at that factory?”

“I’m sure of it.” He looks over at Steve and smiles. “What do ya know, Rogers, I’m just like you.” Steve narrows his eyes and really examines Bucky. He knows his husband better than anyone in the world and Bucky isn’t trying to cover, he really isn’t bothered by this. That may have something to do with the fact that even though he was injected, he was never tortured and Steve can’t thank fate enough for that blessing. Steve lays his head on the other man’s shoulder. “Hey, what’s goin through your head?”

Steve doesn’t move, just seems to snuggle further into Bucky’s warmth. “It didn’t occur to me that they were still working on trying to replicate the formula.”

Howard walks by and overhears what Steve says. “Well, I was too.” He flushes in shame. “That’s why they tried to kill me in ’91.” Steve looks up, hurt evident on his face. “Don’t worry, I destroyed it after. I don’t really know what I was trying to do.” He sits in the seat across from the two super soldiers and gets a distant look in his eyes. “Honestly, I think I was trying to bring a little part of what we had in the war back. It was a fool’s errand.” After seeing the tape, they can tell that Howard blames himself a little. The possibility that someone may have hacked his system and found what he created is probable. To steer him out of his own mind, Steve guides him back to safe conversation. Bucky squeezes his hand.

“How are Maria and Tony doing?” Howard’s face lights up and he spends the next hour or so talking about his wife and son. His pride in what they were able to do with Stark Industries is clear and then he tells them about a new executive assistant that Tony hired and how Maria is sure that there’s something special there.

“Isn’t he trying to sleep his way through the female population like you did?” Howard frowns and then starts to chuckle. The rest of the team comes over, after repacking what they’d pulled out of the base to go over at home.

“I can’t even believe I used to be such a cad.” The group laughs the rest of the way home, but in the end, Howard talks about Maria like she’s a gift that he didn’t deserve. “I didn’t think that anyone could mean more to me than she does and then Tony came along and…I don’t even know how to explain it.”

Bucky reaches over, patting his shoulder. “You don’t have to. The look on your face is everything we need to know.”

2006

It’s been months since the Commandos have been out on a mission. There just seems to be no need with this new SHIELD that’s formed. None of them are sure how they feel about this new guy that’s in charge, but Nick Fury does seem to be one of the good guys. Although, he is a spy, so they have to watch their backs a little more than normal. The last mission they went on, SHIELD agents showed up and the Commandos nearly got caught. If not for MOANa warning them, it would have been much worse than it was. Getting on Fury’s radar is not a good idea. 

It’s also good because it means that with all this new technology that people are carrying around, they don’t get caught on camera. Cell phones are popular, but the new Stark Tech phone is on a whole other level and because Tony wants to make it available to everyone, Stark Industries produces them for the everyday person. Maria tells Howard how the military came to them and wanted exclusive use of the tech and Tony had laughed them out of his office. She tells him that Tony wants nothing to do with the military or the government after what Stane did to the company. Maria had stepped down the year before and told her son that she wanted to travel, but in fact spent the majority of her time with Howard. The two of them together rival Steve and Bucky in acting like newlyweds.

With this new ‘smart phone’ technology out in the general population, getting caught on camera is much more common. So, the Commandos only go out when they absolutely have to and only when the situation calls for _beings_ that can do things that normal humans can’t. Bucky takes this opportunity to tempt Steve into seeing the world they woke up in. “We could take the bike and head up the coast. Just a couple of days to start with and if the world doesn’t come crashing down because we’re gone, we take a longer trip next time.” Bucky pulls out the puppy eyes knowing that Steve can’t resist. When the frown on Steve’s face doesn’t lessen immediately, Bucky adds the bottom lip.

Steve rolls his eyes, but comes over, wrapping his arms around his husband. “You really want to get away, don’t you?”

“Steve, listen, I love my family, you know that, but if we get walked in on again, I’m thinking about moving.” Steve chuckles and then nuzzles into Bucky’s neck, kissing and nipping.

“How about we go and talk about this in the bedroom?” Bucky wraps himself around Steve and they stumble off towards the bedroom. That is until the front door flies open. Bucky thunks his head against Steve’s shoulder and groans.

“We need to use your kitchen! Denier challenged us to see who could make the best dinner and Peggy is using hers.” Gabe, Dum Dum, Monty and Morita freeze when they see the two super soldiers and what they obviously just interrupted. “You two go do whatever it was you were going to do and we’ll just be in here.” They head into the kitchen sniggering to themselves.

Bucky pulls his head back and looks up at Steve accusingly. Steve has to concede that Bucky’s idea has merit. “Yeah, okay, getting away might be a good idea.” Bucky kisses him sweetly. “And you know that this will have to wait because I’m not doing _that_ with them in there.” Steve thumbs towards the kitchen and Bucky nods.

“Yeah, the moods kinda ruined now.” A few days later, they’re on the bike and headed up the coast towards Maine. The plan is to just see where the road takes them, at least that’s what Bucky wants Steve to think. At first the family wasn’t happy about the idea, but all it took was Bucky telling them that he and Steve never had a honeymoon and suddenly everyone was making soft, teary eyes at the two.

They ride all day, stopping when the feeling strikes and end up at a lovely B&B as the sun starts to set. Bucky doesn’t tell Steve that he’s made arrangements, so when they get into their room and the fire place is lit, dinner is on the balcony table, and a bottle of sparkling wine is waiting, Steve looks at his husband and smiles. “You planned this didn’t you?”

Bucky sweeps Steve into his arms. “I wasn’t lying when I said we didn’t have a honeymoon, so…”

“So, you have things planned that I don’t know about.” Before Bucky can answer, Steve leans in, kissing him deeply. “Thank you.”

Dinner is excellent, but dessert is even better. After a long day on the bike and dinner filling their stomachs, they head to the shower. Warmed up under the spray, Steve sinks to his knees and looks up into Bucky’s face. “Stevie…” It’s a breathless moan and the last coherent thing to come out of either of their mouths for a long time.

Wrapped in the down comforter later in bed, Steve kisses up and down Bucky’s shoulder. “I love you.”

Bucky looks over, smiling lazily at the man that’s meant everything for nearly a century. “I love you more.” He drops his fangs and waggles his eyebrows at Steve.

“Oh yeah?” Steve lays back on the pillows and bares his neck. Bucky hovers over him for a few seconds, then presses into Steve’s side and sinks his teeth in. Steve lets out a whimper that Bucky is all too familiar with; it isn’t about pain. Before he’s done, he’s on top of Steve and they’re rutting against each other. Lifting his head, Bucky looks down into the face of a man in ecstasy as Steve cries out his release.

“You hungry?” Steve grins up at Bucky and pulls him down to cuddle against his chest.

“No, maybe tomorrow, but right now I’m perfect.” Bucky wakes the next morning with Steve nuzzling into his neck. Grinning, without opening his eyes, the throws his head back and Steve’s fangs sink into the golden flesh of Bucky’s neck. They end up missing breakfast.

They spend the next week chasing each other around the beach at the B&B in Maine, they eat great food and neither of them stop smiling. The trip back becomes more about meandering than about getting home as fast as possible. It’s Bucky’s idea to stop at a roadside market to grab a couple of things for the family. It starts out with a couple of jars of jam, but then something catches Bucky’s eye and he wanders over to get a look. Steve’s haggling with a sweet lady about some pastries, but doing so in fun when he turns to ask Bucky his opinion and notices his beautiful mate sitting on the ground with a puppy in one arm and a kitten in the other. Rolling his eyes, Steve pays the nice woman and goes over to see what Bucky’s gotten himself into.

Beaming up at Steve, Bucky holds the animals out. “Look how cute!”

“Buck?” Steve looks over and sees a pen with more puppies and kittens. Closing his eyes, he knows he’s going to lose this battle. The man at the table, filled with jars of pickles, smiles up at Steve. “How much?”

The man chuckles and looks down at Bucky. “The pickles are twelve dollars a jar, but the animals are free. Our dog and cat both at babies at the same time, but they’re all mutts. I can’t really charge for them, but want to find them good homes.”

The puppy is licking Bucky’s face and the kitten is batting at his longer hair. Steve gets really sappy watching because it’s the cutest damn thing he’s ever seen. Bucky is talking to both of them in baby talk and telling them how adorable they are. Steve hasn’t seen Bucky this happy and relaxed in a long time, so how can he take that away. “We’ll take a jar of the pickles and those two.”

Bucky’s face shoots up and grins like he’s just been given the best Christmas present ever. “Really?”

“How could I possibly say no when you’ve already bonded to them.”

The puppy has a moddled coat with a patch of white on her chest and white socked feet. The kitten is solid black with bright green eyes. Steve falls in love with them as quickly as Bucky did. Standing next to the bike, Steve holding the puppy and Bucky holding the kitten and all four of them staring at the motorcycle. “We didn’t think this through.”

Steve barks a laugh causing the puppy to yip at him. They put the bags into the side packs on the bike and Steve slips the puppy inside his jacket, zipping it up. Looking over at Bucky, the brunette grins, doing the same with the kitten. “Well okay then.” They straddle the bike and take off into the cool air of the early afternoon. 

It’s a perfect solution except that the puppy keeps lifting it’s little head out of Steve’s jacket and leaning up to lick the super soldier’s face. The kitten just snuggles down inside of Bucky’s jacket and falls asleep. Between the warmth from the two bodies and Bucky cooing at her, the kitten seems happy. Steve pulls his head back, laughing. “You have to stop licking me!”

Bucky snorts in Steve’s ear, looking down at the little fur ball attacking Steve’s chin again. “I think she likes you.”

“That’s great, Buck, but I’m going to wreck if she keeps this up.” They see a fast food place up ahead and Bucky points at it. “Got it!”

They pull through the drive-thru and place an order. As they get to the window, the puppy shows her excitement by doing her version of a howl. The lady at the window giggles at that and reaches through to scratch the puppy’s head. “She’s so cute!” Turning she calls to the other two employees inside and everyone crowds around the window praising the little multi-colored dog. They pull around the building and find a spot for the little furry girl to do her business.

“Seriously, I can’t keep driving with her licking my face, Bucky.” Unzipping his jacket, Bucky pulls the kitten out.

“Here, you take this one and I’ll deal with the kisses.” Steve slips the kitten inside his jacket. Bucky runs after the puppy, who started chasing an empty straw wrapper. Scooping her up, he slips her into his jacket. She immediately starts licking his face. “Alright, cute as you are, now I understand why your other dad had an issue.”

“So, I’m her dad now?” Bucky beams at his husband and Steve feels his heart swell.

“Well yeah, Stevie. We have kids now.” Steve chuckles all the way back to the bike.

They should have known the uproar that the puppy and kitten would cause at the family complex. Becca keeps trying to steal them, but between Steve and Bucky, she doesn’t get far. “Rebecca Barnes-Proctor! We brought you pickles, not puppies and kittens!”

She cackles out into the hallway, where Ian is standing with his hands on his hips and a frown on his face. “Becca, you can’t steal their children.”

“Like hell I can’t, Ian. Look at this face.” She holds the kitten up and it gives a pitiful mew. Steve rescues the little black fluff and heads back into the apartment.

Howard and Maria watch, completely amused by the antics of the younger generation. “Maybe we should get a dog.”

Maria looks at her husband like he’s crazy. “You’ve never wanted a dog.”

“With age comes wisdom.” Everyone disperses after that and Steve and Bucky are left with their furry children.

“Steve, we have to name them.” Bucky’s holding the kitten close to his chest as she starts to doze off.

“Something tells me that you’ve been thinking of names all the way home.” Bucky blushes and looks up at Steve through his lashes. This causes the blond to swallow hard around the surge of desire from that look. “Come on, what have you picked out?”

“Josephine and Frances.” Steve shrugs for Bucky to tell him which is which. “She’s Frances and this beautiful little feline is Josephine.”

That night, they go to bed with the puppy and kitten asleep on a pallet on the floor. They fixed a make-shift litter box and food bowls until they can get better supplies tomorrow. Around three, Frannie, as Bucky has dubbed her, starts to whine. Steve sits up and she comes to the bed, paws on the side and whines up at him louder. “I bet you need to potty don’t you?” Her little tail wags and Steve gets up and slips his shoes on. Unfortunately, she only makes it as far as the stairs before she has an accident. “Awww, sweetheart, you couldn’t hold it?”

Bucky comes stumbling out of the apartment and Frannie hides behind Steve’s leg. “What’s going on?” He’s rubbing his eyes trying to wake up as Joe comes shooting out of the apartment and down the stairs. This causes Frannie to start to bark and chase the kitten into the darkened stairwell. It all happens so fast that Bucky falls into Steve, who falls into the wall. “Holy hell she’s quick!”

Morita pops his head out of his apartment and frowns at the pair. “What the hell, guys?”

There’s a hiss, a bark, then a thump. “Shit!” Steve’s running down the stairs and Bucky’s right on his heels. As they reach the landing, Becca comes out of her apartment, fuming. 

“I was wrong! I don’t want those animals! Get control of your children.” She heads back in, pulling a half-asleep Ian with her.

Steve sweeps Frannie into his arms and the puppy immediately starts to wiggle and squirm to get down. Bucky does the same with Joe, who looks up at him with innocent eyes. “Oh no, you little devil. I know you did this.” They clean up the hallway upstairs and head back to bed. “We may be in over our heads.”

Steve chuckles, pulling Bucky close. “I’ll take your mind off it.”

Bucky rolls over, looking at Steve in the darkness of the room. “Oh will you?”

“Absolutely, sweetheart.” Steve presses Bucky down in the bed, hovering over him, lavishing kisses to any skin he can find. “I love you so much. I wish it felt like those words were enough.”

Bucky meets Steve’s eyes, caressing his cheek. “You don’t even need those words. I can feel you. Always been able to feel you.”

A few mornings later, Steve comes stumbling into the kitchen where Bucky is making breakfast. Joe is sitting on the counter next to the toaster looking very content and Frannie is on the floor looking for a way to get to the kitten. “What’s going on?”

Bucky looks over his shoulder and grins. “Joe discovered that the toaster makes warmth. She’s been sitting there since I started making breakfast.”

Going over, Steve scratches her head and leans down to do the same to Frannie, who just keeps looking up whining. The toast pops up and Joe hisses at it and jumps. She ends up with claws in Steve’s shirt and a terrified look on her face. “What the hell?”

“Yeah, she does that every time it pops up. Hasn’t put two and two together yet and figured out that when I put toast in, it will eventually pop.” Bucky chuckles at Steve trying to wrestle the kitten from his shirt.

“Is it possible they aren’t that bright?” Bucky comes over, covering the kitten’s ears.

“Sssshhh, don’t insult the babies.”

2008

The family grows and changes as the years pass. Steve and Bucky lead more missions when Peggy finds out that she’s pregnant and Dum Dum pulls the husband card and forbids her from going anywhere. There’s a fight that lasts for days, but eventually, she accepts that she can’t jeopardize the health and well-being of the baby. She does tell Tim that if he ever forbids her from anything again, she’s going to lop his head off during the night. 

It’s late May and Peggy is coming up on six months of pregnancy when the unthinkable happens. Maria Stark shows up before dawn tearing through the hallways on her way to Howard’s apartment. She’s in tears and throws his door open calling for him. Stumbling out of the bedroom, Howard sweeps her into his arms trying to shush her tears. His doorway fills with all of their friends as she tries to explain what’s happening. Frannie and Joe edge into the apartment, both rubbing up against Howard and Maria trying to calm the situation.

Gabe moves over to them and puts a hand on her shoulder as Howard holds her close. Gabe whispers something in her ear and suddenly she’s calm enough to talk. They don’t talk about the fact that some of the Commandos have displayed gifts like the rest of the Barnes clan, but gifts are gifts and when you have them and can help those you love, you do. Maria clutches Howard’s pajama top, but also grabbing for Gabe’s hand. “Tony’s been taken.”

Once she starts talking, she doesn’t stop until everything she knows is out. He was at a tech conference in Dubai and terrorists broke into the hotel and took him. No one has been able to get information and no one has taken credit for the kidnapping. The most concerning thing is that his hotel room was ransacked and there was blood on the walls. Howard looks up at the team. “We’re going after my son.” There isn’t any disagreement, they just all head to the command center and MOANa. The command center was finally finished the year before and MOANa controls everything and also does constant security sweeps of the complex.

In the command center, Howard goes straight for his gear. He’s halfway into his uniform when the team catches up with him. He’s in tears with Maria standing next to him, helping with the straps of the gear. “What are you doing?”

Peggy waddles in, looking like she’s half sleeping and watches the man wrestle with his uniform. There was a time when she would be trying to talk sense into him, but carrying this baby has changed her focus some. Resting her hand on her extended stomach, she begins crying as well. Tim comes to her, holding her and flooding their connection with all of his love and devotion. Reaching up, she caresses his face. Steve seems to be the only one that’s thinking clearly. He doesn’t know Howard’s kid, just what stories that he’s heard through the older man. But he does know, vampire or not, Tony is part of the family through Howard and Maria.

He’s just not sure what to say, so Bucky steps in. “Again, I ask, what are you doing?”

Howard looks up, furious and anxious. “I’m going after my son! I’ll be damned if anything’s going to happen to him.”

“And where, exactly, are you going to go? You don’t know where he’s been taken, you don’t know who has taken him, so what? You just going to go charging into the night with no direction?” Maria looks between the two men and knows that Bucky’s right.

“I’ll search this whole damned world if I have to. He’s my son!” Howard is halfway into his uniform when Bucky steps up to him and it’s a clear face off.

Bucky’s face softens and he lays a hand on Howard’s shoulder. “If anything happened to any member of this family, I would feel like you do and I can’t understand the connection between a father and his son, but you have to see going out like this is futile.” Howard’s face falls and Bucky knows his friend is hearing him now. “Plus, I’d hate to have Steve sit on you while I try to talk sense into you.”

Steve furrows his brow, looking at his husband indignant. “HEY!”

Howard cracks a smile. “What would you have me do? I wasn’t there for him most of his life. I have to be there for him now.”

Bucky squeezes Howard’s shoulder. “I know and you will be, but we need to find out where he is. Once we do that, we’ll go in after him.” Howard nods.

They aren’t the only ones looks for Tony. Pepper Potts uses all of the resources that Stark Industries has, with the help of Happy Hogan they search all of the files taken by local police in Dubai and by agents from the US Government. Colonel James Rhodes calls in every favor he can to find any leads that might lead to who took Tony: his best friend.

Howard piggybacks off of their searches to do some of his own and with the help of Marty, Peggy, Maria, and Morita, they get further than the others. The thing about being ‘dead’ is that certain agencies keep an eye on Stark Industries and by default, Pepper and being part of the US Military, Colonel Rhodes has to deal with certain road blocks, but Howard Stark is not watched because Howard Stark is ‘dead.’ So, when he digs into the files that Pepper and Colonel Rhodes have already opened up, no one is watching to see him dig a little deeper. No one knows to stop him because they don’t know he’s there.

It’s nearly a month of going out of his mind and still trying to hold Maria together when Marty and Morita come rushing into his office. Peggy is on bed rest and expected to give birth any day. Steve and Bucky came back from a small mission the night before, so they’re sleeping, but on the way to the lab, Morita had banged on their door, waking Frannie and Joe, in effect, waking the two super soldiers.

They come stumbling into the lab as Marty is babbling so fast that no one can understand him. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, I’m going to need a lot of coffee to follow this conversation.” Steve wraps his arms around Bucky, who leans into him to the point that the blond is holding him up.

“We found him!” Everyone is on high alert after that and Howard calls Maria, who’s been practically living at Stark Industries with Pepper.

They bring everything up on the holo-screen and start walking everyone else through what they have. One thing sticks out to Howard that no one else seems to see. “Bring this file up.” Howard’s face is dark and his eyes are narrow. Jim enlarges the file, but no one but Howard sees anything out of the ordinary. “You’re telling me that this order is the one that they followed to kidnap my son?”

Marty looks at it again, still confused. “Yeah. Whoever this group is, they ordered the kidnapping.”

Howard turns away from the screen and Bucky pulls away from Steve and goes to his friend. “Howard?”

Howard’s got his hand rubbing his forehead, eyes closed and trying to focus. “Do you see the code at the top of the orders?”

Bucky turns back to the screen to look. “Yeah, do you know what group that’s associated with?”

Howard hums then turns back to the screen. “Yeah, the first three are for the DOD, the middle ones are an individual number for the op, and the last six are for the person that ordered this.”

Steve’s eyes get huge and Bucky looks at everyone else in the room. “Wait! Are you saying that our government ordered the kidnapping of your son?”

Howard leans on the table and glares at the screen. “Yeah, and I want to know who those last six digits belong to because I’m going to kill them.”

They anonymously send the coordinates of where Tony’s being held to Colonel Rhodes and suit up to go lend backup if needed. What they find when they get to the base camp gives Howard hope. Tony isn’t there anymore, but before he left the camp he almost destroyed everything. What isn’t destroyed the Commandos take care of. They find a man, under a pile of rubble. He looks up at the masks of the group above him, fear in his eyes. “Did he make it out?”

“Who? Who are you concerned about?” Howard kneels next to the man, seeing the kindness in his eyes.

“Tony. Did Tony get out alive? Tell me that he did. I do not want to let this world go until I’m sure.” Howard pulls his mask away and smiles down at the man.

“Yes, he made it out and he’d being picked up as we speak.” Yinsen smiles and nods. “I can save you, if you let me.”

The man smiles up at Howard. “No, my family is waiting for me. There is nothing left for me here in this world.” Howard nods because he understands that kind of devotion.

“Then go and tell them you died a hero.” Yinsen chuckles brokenly coughing up blood. He lays back against the stone wall and closes his eyes. Looking back up at the team, Howard nods. “Let’s go make sure they find Tony.”

Only when Howard and the rest of the team are sure that Tony’s been found by Colonel Rhodes, do they head back to their own aircraft. Once on board, they shadow the Blackhawk back to base. In stealth mode, they’re invisible to any backlash they might incur from the US Military Base. Howard knows that Maria is on her way, being escorted by military personnel to the base. He just hopes that it’s the one that he wants.

It took another week for Marty and Jim to figure out who the numbers on the file belonged to, but Howard is going to make sure that the man doesn’t leave this base alive. Steve sits next to his friend not sure how to have this conversation. Finally, Howard looks over at him and arches an eyebrow. “Are you sure about this?” The older looking man is fuming now and Steve raises his hands in defense. “Howard, I’m not saying I don’t agree with you, I would probably do the same thing. I just want to make sure you understand what happens if something goes wrong.”

He’s standing now, looking down at Steve. “When Tony was a child, I was so busy trying to outdo myself that I ignored him. When he got older, he rebelled, like I would have.” Howard chuckles. “I didn’t know how to communicate with him because he was so much like me, still is, but he didn’t deserve this and for something as simple as tech. Ross kidnapped him to force him into giving the military what they wanted. That doesn’t go unpunished.”

Steve nods and stands. “That’s all I needed to hear. As soon as he gets here, we’ll have the base scouted.” Looking over at his husband, Steve nods again. “We’ll wait until shift change and go over the fence, but we have to do this as silently as possible.”

Bucky pulls his favorite gun from his belt. “I guess that means I have to leave my baby behind.”

Denier turns in the pilot seat, grinning. “No, you can take your baby with you, but you have to leave the gun here.” The raucous laughter fills the jet and Bucky goes over, kissing each of Denier’s cheeks.

“You, my friend, are an asshole.”

Ross arrives the next morning with Maria and Howard watches from the cameras that Steve and Bucky planted the night before. One of them, because Bucky’s just that good, is in Tony’s hospital room, so he’s been able to watch his son all night. He watches as his wife hugs their son and kiss him all over his face. Tony tries to act like it bothers him, but he beams up at his mother. She stays for hours, but when she finally leaves to freshen up, Ross stays behind at Tony’s request.

Howard watches and listens seeing what his kid is up to because he knows the look on Tony’s face. “Well Stark, I wasn’t sure we were going to find you alive, but Colonel Rhodes tells me that you built something remarkable.” He’s looks down at Tony’s chest where the blue glow shows from under his shirt.

“Yeah, and you aren’t getting your hands on this either.” Howard’s son is quick and without a doubt smarter than Howard ever was.

“Either? I don’t understand.” Ross has that arrogant, pompous attitude that just seems to be part of his personality.

“It took me about three days to put it together while I was held prisoner in that cave, but you orchestrated this kidnapping. You thought it would make me insecure and willing to do anything for my safety, including, but not limited to giving you the tech you want.” Tony sits up, but it’s obvious that it’s painful. “What you didn’t count on was this.” He taps the blue glow on his chest. “You didn’t count on me getting hurt bad enough that I had to not only fight my way out, but fight for my life.”

“That’s ridiculous and no one will believe you, Stark.” Ross walks over to the window nonchalantly, but he’s tipped his hand already.

“Ridiculous or not, you made one really serious error.” Ross turns back and Tony grins at him. “You fucked with a Stark and if you didn’t get the memo, making an enemy of a Stark is a bad move. Anything you wanted from me before will never happen and anything you want from me in the future won’t happen. Get the fuck out of my room.” Ross makes for the door with that smarmy grin. “And another thing,” Ross turns back around, “come after me or my family again and I’ll end you.”

Howard has never been prouder of his son. He’s his own man and no longer living in Howard’s shadow and that’s all any parent wants for their kid. He turns to Steve and Bucky, who have also been watching. “We go in tonight and make sure that Ross never hurts anyone again.”

That night, as Tony sleeps and Maria sits next to his bed, there’s a disturbance outside of the care unit. One of the guards sticks his head in. “Stay inside the room, Ma’am.” He pulls the glass door closed and heads out with the other guard. 

Tony looks over at his mother and she tries to smile at him. She knows how Howard planned to carry out the revenge and this isn’t part of that. Standing, she goes to the door. “Mom, what are you doing?”

She goes back to the bed taking Tony’s face in her hands. “You rest. Everything is going to be fine.” He closes his eyes and lets what he believes to be the sedative they gave him earlier take hold. She looks down at the blue glow in his chest and glares. Not at how Tony kept himself alive, but at the fact that he had to do it because of Ross.

She hears it before she sees anything. Her iridescent blue eyes spark and then start to faintly glow. Standing off to the side, the door quietly slides open and two masked men come in. Neither of them are her family. Dropping her fangs, she grabs one from behind, clamping her arm around his neck with just enough force. The gasping sound just before he passes out alerts the other gunman and he turns. Maria leaps at him as he fires his weapon. The bullet hits her leg, but doesn’t stop her forward momentum. He’s on the ground looking up into her face, but with glowing eyes and fangs. Tony doesn’t stir because she made sure that he wouldn’t. “Wh-what are you?”

She grins down at him. “I’m your worst nightmare. You came after my son and I can’t forgive that. Now who sent you?”

The guy is shaking his head, so she drags her fangs across his neck. “General Ross…General Ross…I swear I don’t know why. Please don’t kill me…please.”

Maria stands, hauling the man up with her. He tries to break free, but his strength is no match for a vampire. Keeping her hand on his neck, she reaches down, picking up the other man too. The one still in her grasp looks like he’s about to piss his pants. No amount of training could prepare these soldiers for the wrath of a vampire family. The double doors at the end of the hallway open and General Ross comes in, expecting to find Maria and Tony Stark dead. She throws the two young soldiers at the opposite wall which knocks out the one that she’d been talking to. Ross looks at her and she knows that she has a chance to take care of this herself, but doesn’t want to take this away from her husband either. Ross pulls a gun, but she’s behind him before he can even see her move. Reaching around him, she takes the gun from his hands faster than he can register. “Now, now General, we wouldn’t want you hurting anyone, would we?”

He turns and it’s the first that he sees her eyes. “Mrs. Stark, what…”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t try to talk your way out of this. I already know what you were using those two for.” She nods over to the two masked soldiers. “What you didn’t count on is something that your tiny mind can’t wrap itself around.” 

“And what’s that?” He’s trying to be smug, but when the double doors slam open again and a group of masked soldiers come through that he knows aren’t his, he wavers. “What is this?”

Howard Stark pulls the mask from his face and watches a plethora of emotions cross the general’s face. “This is retribution.” Bucky, Steve, and Denier stand behind him, masks still in place. “You went after our son and that is not something that any smart of sane man would have done.”

“How…where…you can’t be…” Ross looks over at the men passed out on the floor and then into the room where Tony is sleeping.

Steve watches the man’s face and something niggles at the back of his mind. There’s no way that Ross was able to do all of this without help. Someone else is pulling these strings, someone that will eventually show their hand. Howard is seeing his son’s life threatened and as much as Steve understands that anger, he has to be sure that Howard won’t have to out himself at some point. Going over to the men on the floor, he pulls up the mask and unzips the man’s black uniform. Searching over the man’s arms and chest, he finds what he’s looking for.

Howard watches Steve, but his focus is on Ross. Steve inclines his head and Bucky comes over and sees the small tattoo on the guy’s ribcage. “Son of a bitch.” They both look over at Howard. “We have a bigger problem here, Stark.”

Howard leaves the man in the capable hands of his wife and goes to look at what the two super soldier’s found. “Fuck!” The skeletal like head with tentacles is unmistakable. “We need to find out how far this goes.” The words are whispered to the two men and Howard looks back at Ross. “Are you Hydra too?”

Ross looks shocked and appalled by that accusation. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Howard moves faster than humanly possible and wraps a hand around Ross’s neck, dragging him over to the man on the floor. “Look! You’ve got Hydra doing your bidding and you think I’m not going to believe you’re part of that!”

Ross sees the tattoo and looks like he might be sick. Looking up at Howard, he clears his throat. “I might be a grade-A asshole, but I’m NOT one of them. I was given serial numbers for the men that would…”

“Kill my son and wife!” Howard throws the man and Denier catches him, holding him in place. Looking at Steve and Bucky, Howard conceded that they have a bigger fish to go after. “What do we do? He’s seen my face.”

Steve gets up and goes to the general. “If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll never say anything about this.” Ross nearly balks at that. “Because we can get to him anywhere, anytime and what’s left of him when we do won’t be recognizable to anyone.”

Ross gives a hard swallow and trusts that what this masked man is saying is true. “I didn’t see anything.”

Maria looks over, ready to argue when Howard comes to her and whispers what they found. She looks devastated as much as the rest of them do. Going to the general, Howard gets into his face, backing him into the wall. “If you come after my son, my wife, or anyone connected to Stark Industries, I will be back and next time, I will eat you.” Howard drops his fangs and lets his eyes bleed into the glowing blue. “That is a promise.”

Howard goes into Tony’s room and kisses his son’s forehead, then returns to Maria and kisses her deeply. “I’ll see you soon.” She caresses his face and he smiles warmly at her. “I love you.”

Resting his forehead against his wife’s, Howard closes his eyes. “I love you too. Take care of him.” She nods and the Commandos exit the care unit leaving a stunned and confused General Ross in their wake.

It takes months for things to get back to normal at the family complex, especially when Tony Stark announces that he is Iron Man. Suddenly, terrorists groups are being terrorized themselves by a man whose intellect outweighs his self-preservation. Steve and Bucky are in the garden with Joe and Frannie and Howard is pacing the area yelling on the phone with Maria. “Is he trying to get himself killed?” 

As he paces, Steve turns to Bucky, grinning. “If one of our kids ever tries this, we’re going to nail them to the ground.”

Bucky barks a laugh, looking over as Joe pouncing on Frannie. “If one of our kids does this, we’re going to charge admission and become rich.”

Steve stands, pulling Bucky up with him and calls the furry kids. They bound towards the door that Bucky opens for them. “I think I need a nap.”

Bucky looks over, dropping his fangs. “A nap sounds good.”

Gabe chuckles as they come up the stairs. “Is that your new code word for defiling each other?”

Steve pats him on the shoulder. “It is, so if you could keep anyone from barging into our apartment for the next,” He looks over as Bucky’s eyes start to glow, “four hours or so, that would be great.”

Steve takes off up the stairs after the animals and Bucky growls low in his throat. Gabe just cackles because the chase is on and everyone in the apartments around them are going to get a earful. “I’m not going to tell anyone anything, they’re going to hear it in a few minutes.” He’s talking to himself and is glad he’s going out for the day. Less trauma that way.


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From 2010 - 2012

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seamus=Steve; James=Bucky; Jamie=Maria; Ivan=Howard; Juan=Morita; Gio=Denier; Cap=Peggy; Jakobus=Gabe; Jakko=Monty; Jimbo=Dum Dum

Part III-2010

Bucky rolls over reaching for Steve, but he’s not in the bed. The door creaks open and Bucky can’t help the smile, but instead of Steve, it’s Frannie. Jumping up onto the bed, she lays down in the bend of Bucky’s body and he leans over to kiss her head and scratch her belly. “Where’s your other dad, huh?”

“He’s right here.” Bucky looks up and smiles because Steve’s carrying a tray. “Have I told you lately that you’re beautiful?”

Bucky taps his chin, seemingly lost in thought. “UH…well…”

“Shaddup asshole. You know you’re gorgeous.” Coming to the bed, Bucky sits up and Steve puts the tray in his lap. 

“What’s all this about?” Taking a sip of the coffee, he cuts his eyes to Steve, who just stands there smiling.

“This is because I love you and I want you to know that every day.” He sits on the edge of the bed. Reaching over, he brushes Bucky’s hair away from his face. “This is because the day I met you was the best day of my life.” Leaning in, he lays gentle kisses on Bucky’s shoulder. “This is because when you finally, finally made me your mate, everything I ever wanted I got.”

“Mmmmm, someone is feeling romantic.” He gives Steve a lazy kiss and blushes at the amount of love he can feel. “I like this.”

Steve’s about to move the tray and forget about breakfast when the front door slams open making everyone jump and Joe run into the bedroom to skid under the bed. “You will not convince your Uncle Steve and Uncle Bucky to buy you the Spy Net Spy Watch!” There’s a pause. “Eleanor Carter-Dugan, get back here!”

Bucky buries his face in Steve’s neck and starts chuckling. Steve joins in as the bedroom door opens and a very angry Eleanor followed by an even angrier Peggy comes storming in. “Unca ‘teve, Unca Bucky, there you are!”

Peggy huffs. “Thank god you two are decent.”

Eleanor comes to the bed and Steve scoops her up. “Another few seconds and that would have been questionable.”

Eleanor may only be 2, but she’s a spitfire just like her mother. She glares over at Peggy. “Mama say that I canna have what I wan for my birfday!”

Bucky leans over, kissing her forehead. “And you want a spy watch?”

“Mama a py and you a py and Unca ‘Teve a py and Daddy a py. I wanna be py too.” Steve looks over at Peggy, raising his eyebrows.

“And how exactly does she know what we do, Margaret?” Peggy gives Steve the look that used to make him cower when they first met.

“She’s a curious little girl and I can’t help that she figured it out!” Eleanor crosses her little arms over her chest and looks very smug.

“She’s two!” Eleanor looks back at Bucky aghast at his words.

“Imma ‘bout to be free.” To make her point she holds up three fingers.

After breakfast and a little cuddle time, Bucky heads out to see about this gift that Peggy will surely kill them for, but if his niece wants it, she’s going to get it. Steve grinned at him as he left knowing full well what Bucky was up to. Moving through the store, he stops at what appear to be kid and adult onsies, but each one looks like a different creature. He smiles and starts to move on, but then sees one that looks like a unicorn with a sparkly horn sized for a kid. The thing is, it looks like something that would fit Frannie. Grinning even wider, he grabs it and heads further into the store. 

He finds out later that Frannie is not a fan as they try to wrestle her into the thing, but the pictures are worth her annoyance. Joe thinks the horn on Frannie’s head is a toy and pounced when the dog lays down in protest. The next thing Steve knows, Frannie is dragging Joe across the floor because the cat won’t let go of the horn. Teeth digging into the sparkles and eyes the size of  saucers; Joe hangs on for dear life as Frannie backs down the hallway trying to get the cat to release her. Bucky laughs so hard he falls into the wall while Steve keeps trying to get pictures through tears from his own laughter. Frannie finally gives up and lays down with a heavy doggy sigh and Joe begins leaping to and  fro repeatedly landing on the dog. Frannie cuts her eyes up to Bucky and Steve. “I think she’s asking for help.” 

Steve starts to chuckle again when Joe flies through the air, landing on Frannie’s head again. “I think she’s pouting.”

“She has no idea how cute she it.” Bucky goes to grab Joe and wrestle her away from the horn.

“She doesn’t care how cute she is, she only cares that we’re making fun of her.” Frannie gets up and goes into the bedroom to hide under the bed. “Aw now, sweetheart, we just think you’re adorable.”

Bucky hands the cat to Steve and gets on the floor to look at the dog. Frannie’s face is hidden because the costume hood has fallen over her eyes. “I think we’re in trouble.”

Joe makes a leap for it and lands on the bed. Running to the other side, she jumps down and runs under the bed. The next noise they hear is Frannie yelping. Steve chuckles again. “You think Joe’s being a shit?”

Bucky snorts. “ Of course, she’s being a shit. She’s a cat.”

A few days later, in the garden of the complex, Eleanor gets exactly what she wants for her birthday and when she opens the gift Bucky has to move inhumanly fast to get away from Peggy. Steve would help, but it’s more fun to watch Bucky running from an irate mother.

2011

Steve leaves on a mission with Gabe and Monty in the second week of June when terrorists attack a market in Pakistan. They wouldn’t normally go, but one of the husbands in the Barnes Clan has family there. Granted, he hasn’t seen them since marrying into the Clan, but he’s still worried. The small team end up staying in the Middle East until late June just to make sure everything is settled. When they return, Bucky is waiting at the warehouse that houses their aircraft.

Steve exits the jet and sees Bucky waiting. “Well, to what to I owe this surprise?”

As he gets closer to Bucky, instead of getting a hug or a kiss, Steve watches his mate get down on one knee. Soon, many other family members fill the hanger. “Steven Grant Rogers, the minute I met you, I knew you were it for me. When you mated with me, I didn’t think I could be happier, but today the state of New York gave us a gift we’ve been waiting for. We’ve called each other husband for decades, but today I can ask you to legally let me call you husband for the rest of our lives. Marry me, Steve?”

June 24, 2011, Steve Rogers and James Barnes get engaged and start planning a simple ceremony and the biggest, long awaited reception in the history of the Barnes Clan. “Yes.” Steve gets his kiss and a fiancé. 

Even though they wanted something simple, Bucky’s Ma took over and the next thing they knew, it was far from small. “Ma, this is too much!” Steve sits to the side and doesn’t say anything because he learned many, many years ago that if Winnie Barnes wanted something, she was going to have it.  So, he just watches as Frannie and Joe ‘attack’ each other on the kitchen floor. Grinning he tries to focus back on what Bucky and his Ma are saying.

“James Buchannan Barnes, you are my only son and you’ve been with Steven since the two of you were, jesus, too young to be wantin the stuff you were wantin. You’ll have this ceremony for what it’s meant to be.” She goes to her son, cupping his cheek. “Bucky, you and Steven are…sweetheart, you two were written in the stars.” Something about the way she says it gets Steve’s attention because it’s not said like a romantic proclamation, but almost like a truth.

Steve hears Bucky sniffle and realizes he’s doing the same. The only wish he has is that his Ma could have seen this. “Ma Winnie, if you want to put this together and make it that special, then we want it too.”

Bucky wipes his eyes, looking over at Steve. “Yeah, whatever you want, Ma.” Winnie picks up the phone and calls great-great grandpa Barnes. They talk excitedly in Romanian and Bucky just rolls his eyes and grabs Steve’s hand pulling him out of the room.

The courtyard of the complex is transformed on the day of the wedding. It looks like something out of a fairy tale and as Steve stands in the window of their apartment, watching everything being put together, he’s feeling all of the emotions of what this day is supposed to be. Tucking Joe into a backpack with her little green eyes  peeking out and putting Frannie on her harness and leash, he leaves the apartment. He hasn’t seen Bucky since last night because when Winnie said all of the traditions, she meant all of them, including not seeing each other since the rehearsal. He doesn’t really understand some of what’s been asked of him, but when great-great grandpa Barnes asks you something, you tell the man what he wants to know.

Steve makes the walk to the cemetery. He wants to tell his Ma just how happy he is and hopes that she can hear him.

What he’s not expecting is to get to the tree where his Ma and Da’s graves are and find Bucky there, laying flowers at each headstone. Stopping he listens. Not meaning to intrude, but also wondering why Bucky would be here. “Miss Sarah, I understand why you didn’t take the offer from my Ma, I really do, but today I really wish you were going to be here.” Steve doesn’t know what Bucky’s talking about. What offer? “Steve’s been making me happy for so long, but I promise you that I’ll spend every day of my life making him happy.”

“You already do.” Bucky whirls around and Steve lets Frannie’s leash go as she sprints over to her other dad.

“Hey, baby girl. Where’s your sister?” Looking up, Steve turns and shows Bucky Joe’s little black fuzzy head sticking out of the backpack. “There’s my other girl.” Steve goes to him and kisses him gently. “Looks like we both had the same idea.”

Steve rests his forehead against Bucky’s temple. “If you’ve ever thought, at any time, that you didn’t make me happy, I’m sorry for making you think that.” They just relax into the other, breathing in the only true home they’ve ever had. “What offer?” Bucky looks up confused then he remembers what he said. “What offer did your Ma make to mine?”

“Steve, it’s nothing really.” Steve quirks an eyebrow at him and Bucky knows he’s not getting out of this. “Fine, when your Ma got sick, mine went to her and offered to make her part of the family.” Steve is shocked because he didn’t know that his mother knew about the Barnes Clan. “Sarah told Ma that she would take the offer if you were going to be left alone, but you had me and she wanted to see your Da again. She told  Ma that she knew that I would take care of you.”

Tears, not of sadness, but of joy, traverse down Steve’s cheeks. His Ma knew and never said anything and never stopped loving him. “Maybe they’ll both be with us today.” With the leash in one hand and Steve’s hand in the other, Bucky pulls him back towards home.

“Do you really think my Ma is right?” Steve looks questioningly at Bucky. “You think our love is written in the stars?”

Steve raises Bucky’s hand and kisses it. “I do.”

“Save that for later, Sweetheart.” 

The Commandos sit off to the side watching Steve and Bucky dance their first dance as official husbands. Their jackets and ties gone, hands clasp close to their chests, swaying to the music from decades ago. “They always looked good together, but they look even better now.” Tim’s arm slips around his wife’s waist and he leans in to kiss his daughter’s head.

“That they do, my friend.” Gabe gets up and goes to get more drinks, patting Tim’s back on his way. “That they do.”

Jim looks around the table as Gabe comes back with a bottle of champagne. “Does anyone ever think about all we’ve been through since he changed us?”

The whole table looks at him with soft smiles. Howard reaches over, taking Maria’s hand. “I wouldn’t trade anything we’ve done or had to do to get here.”

Jim smiles. “Here, here.” Glasses are raised and Steve and Bucky look over to see their friends. All glasses turn to the two men who’ve only ever had eyes for each other, but gave this small group a home and family they never expected. “Here’s to Barnes and Rogers, the two finest men this world has ever known.”

Both of the newlywed's blush and come over to join the group. Picking up their own glasses they drink with them. Bucky goes to his mother and kisses her cheek, whispering something in her ear. She waves everyone to quiet down and Bucky stands in the middle of the dance floor and holds his hand out to Steve. The blond rushes to his side. “A long time ago my family came to this country and settled, in a then, very sparse area. They started with a deep desire to make a safe place for the family.” Bucky looks around at his clan. “As the years went on, they fell in love and married.” He looks at Steve. “As children were  born, we were taught to keep our heads down and not draw attention to what we are.” Bucky looks over at the patriarch of their family, the man that started all of this. “Then I met Steve Rogers and my world was turned upside down.” Steve leans in, kissing Bucky’s cheek. “He figured me out before I could tell him anything. I followed him like a lost puppy most days.” 

Winnie giggles at that and nods furiously. “It was kinda sad actually.” There’s raucous laughter from that.

“Hush, I’m trying to be heartfelt, Ma.” There’s more laughter and Steve runs over to kiss his mother-in-law then returns to Bucky. “So far from home, my connection to the family was weak, until Steve came for me and with him, we found more family.” He raises his glass to the table of his found family. “You didn’t know it then, but you gave me something I needed. I can’t tell you how honored I am that you trusted me and let me bring you into this Clan.” Bucky turns, looking into the blue eyes of his husband. “Steve, the vows are done and the rings are on our fingers, but you will never know the depths of the love I have for you.” Steve starts to speak, but Bucky kisses him to shut him up. “You aren’t just my husband and mate; you are the very air that I breathe and every beat of my heart. You are truly my other half. I’ve loved you for as long as I’ve known you and you gifted me with a love in return that’s so great, so immense, that I’ll never deserve it. Thank you for being my love and my life.” There are sniffles and applause as they kiss again.

The newlyweds don’t go on a honeymoon, instead, Becca and Ian take the fur babies for the night. Bucky carries Steve all the way into the bedroom and lays him on the bed. Steve grins up at him. “You have plans, I can see it on your face.”

Bucky chuckles at that. “I’ve planned out the whole night and most of tomorrow. I hope you aren’t busy.”

“Oh, I’m going to be busy alright.” Bucky strips him out of his clothes, kissing each body part that’s revealed.

Even before things get more heated, Bucky’s fangs drop and Steve grins, dropping his own. “You and me, we’re going to be  real busy for a long time.”

Hours later, Bucky is pinned to the wall, sweat slicked. Steve pounds into him with his fangs buried deep in Bucky’s neck, drinking his fill. Bucky’s head slams into the wall and he groans. Steve releases his neck and looks up at the man of his dreams. “J-jesus…you…y-you’re s-so beau-tiful.”

Bucky lifts his head from the wall and stares down at Steve. Slamming his mouth against his husband’s he kisses him viciously and then goes for his neck. The second his fangs sink in, Steve screams his release, but holds Bucky secure.

As they rest in bed later, Steve runs his fingers through Bucky’s hair. It’s gotten longer now and as much as he thought he wouldn’t like  it; Bucky looks damn good with long hair. Of course, Steve thinks he looks good no matter what he does with his hair. As his fingers drag through his hair, Bucky hums. “That’s nice.” They’re both feeling a strange buzz under their skin and getting too far, even to go to the kitchen, seems to be more than they can stand. Steve feels almost like he’s dropping into a warm fuzzy blanket. Somewhere in his mind, deep under that warm, intense feeling of love, he knows something is off, but he can’t bring that forward.

“You’re nice.” Bucky looks up, opening one eye and snorts.

“That all you got, Rogers?” Steve blinks and Bucky really looks at him. At first, he wonders if all the exchange of blood tonight was too much. Sitting up, Bucky takes Steve’s face in his hands, forcing the blond to look at him. “Steve? Stevie? What’s going on?” They’ve been pretty intense in their love making and each time they’ve bitten each other and drank. It’s more than they’ve done before, but just felt...necessary.

Steve blinks again and smiles lazily. “Nothin’s wrong, Buck. Just feel…fuzzy.” Then Steve’s eyes fly open and he really feels Bucky. “Baby, why are you so panicked? I’m fine.” His eyes are less hazy than before.

In all the years they’d known each other before mating, they could read each other like a book. After mating they could feel the other in ways that wasn’t quite normal, but still in the acceptable realm for the family. What Steve and Bucky are feeling right now isn’t that, it’s something more.

All the times that Bucky’s wondered about the powers that the other’s in the family have, whether born or made, he’s never been jealous or envied that, but apparently marrying Steve, really marrying him and sharing the absolute carnal relationship they just went through with the trading of blood repeatedly, opened up something that he wasn’t expecting. “Steve, can you feel me?” Mentally he snorts because that could be taken so many ways.

Steve snorts too. “Yeah, no kidding.  Of course, I can feel you, Bucky. We’ve always had that.” It isn’t until after he says it that Steve realizes what just happened. “Buck?” Steve’s overwhelmed and thinks that maybe this is good, but also a little scary.

“You think thoughts might cross your mind now and then that I don’t want to know?” Bucky’s smirking, but is also wide-eyed and intrigued.  _ ‘Tell me when you knew you loved me.’ _

Steve blushes, so Bucky knows this is going to be good.  _ ‘When I was eight. You spent the night and took your shirt off cause it was hot. I couldn’t stop lookin at ya. Watched ya all night actually.’  _ He never opens his mouth to say the words aloud. 

“You were eight!” Bucky looks incredulous at Steve.

“I always knew it was you! You knew that!” Bucky sweeps over the top of Steve, pressing his husband down into the bed. Steve looks up blushing.

“I was a skinny nuthin at 9, Steve.” Steve pulls him down into a searing kiss.

“You were never a nuthin.” Bucky leans in to kiss him again. “Are we going to talk about this?”

_ ‘Nope.’  _ Flipping them over, the moans that come out of their mouths are only matched by the thoughts of devotion coming from their minds.

They don’t talk about it, it just is, but the Commandos start to notice that Steve and Bucky are quieter than normal. Even in meetings about missions, they don’t pick at each other like they used to, but they still grin at each other like they are. At  first, they think that something’s wrong, but when Gabe touches them in hopes of soothing whatever is wrong, he can only feel calm coming through.

Early 2012

They go out for their monthly ‘just the  Howlies ’ dinner. Ian keeps Eleanor, while Becca teaches a night class giving Peggy and Timothy a night to themselves. When the rest of the group walks into the restaurant, Steve and Bucky are already there and so wrapped up in each other that they don’t see them coming. The team watches them for a few minutes before interrupting. Turned towards each other in the booth, Bucky’s elbow rests on Steve’s shoulder, slowly running his fingers through the back of the  blonde's hair. Neither are speaking and neither are aware of their surroundings. Their foreheads are resting together and their eyes are closed. The look of absolute bliss is clear and present on their faces. 

The waitress passes the group. “They’ve been like that since they came in. Must be somethin to love someone that much.”

Peggy narrows her eyes because now and then one or both of them will smile, like there’s a conversation going on that no one else can hear. “It’s about time we get to the bottom of this.” They stride over, sliding into the booth and around to bump Bucky’s back. 

The two soldier’s jump apart. “Oh…hey guys!”

Peggy shoves at them. “Don’t ‘hey guys’ me. Explain yourselves.” They stumble and stutter. Peggy just rolls her eyes. “Just tell us what’s going on.”

Bucky looks over at Steve, blushing and Steve wraps his arms around his husband and pulls him back against his chest. “We’re not sure what it is, exactly, but since our wedding night we’ve been able to…hear each other.”

Jim looks confused. “Were the two of you deaf before and we didn’t notice?” The group snorts, but Gabe stops short.

“Wait, you mean you can  _ hear _ each other.” They both  nod . “Holy shit! That’s incredible.”

They explain to their friends exactly what happened and how they think it opened the connection. Peggy sits, listening and cataloguing everything they’re saying. “You think it had something to do with the blood exchange?”

Bucky nods and furrows his brow. “I think it was a little more than that. I mean, you guys know that the marriage ceremony we had was a little different.” There are nods around the table. “I think that had something to do with it too.” Part of the ceremony was done in Romanian because of great-great grandpa Barnes and the words are more of a binding ceremony than a normal wedding. “I think the words spoken, plus the intense blood exchange allowed us to have this.” The binding ceremony came with the Barnes family when they came over. Many don’t use it anymore, but Winnie seemed insistent that Bucky and Steve needed that part in their wedding. They both think that she knew what was going to happen.

Gabe reaches over, putting a hand on Bucky’s arm. “It could also be that you two were meant to be.” Steve thinks about Winnie’s words of how being together was written in the stars for them. “I wondered why the two of you never had…”

When Gabe stops, Steve finishes. “Had any gifts like the rest of you?” Gabe nods with a look of embarrassment. “We never begrudged any of you for the gifts that this gave you. Just so you know.”

Bucky jumps in. “You didn’t develop them until you came home and that’s what the strength of the family does for us. That family connection gives us more, gives us power. All of you came into your own gifts because  you’re family.”

Peggy looks up at her husband. “Is that why no one ever questioned that I lead this merry band of misfits?”

They all laugh at that and Monty pats her hand. “Pegs, when we got home you took on the aura of power that not one of us could question. It’s like a beacon shining out of you.”

Tim leans over to kiss her cheek. “That’s my wife, gentlemen. The strongest person before and after our change.” Peggy beams up at him. “And the most beautiful woman alive.”

Each of them  has a gift and no one ever thought to question why it happened when it happened. It was just a fact. Steve looks over at Bucky and thinks that theirs is the best of them all.

_ ‘I love you with everything I am.’ _

_ ‘Two hearts, one soul.’ _

“Somehow I believe we should be happy we can’t hear what you’re saying. It’s probably too sappy for our innocent ears.” Denier gets an elbow in the side from Gabe, but they’re all laughing and smiling.

The later it gets, the more alcohol is consumed, the more laughing happens. The waitress just giggles along with them because none of them are loud, obnoxious drunks. Dum Dum raises his glass and the other follow. “To the best damn group of  people I’ve ever met and gladly call my family.”

“Here, here!” It’s a chorus of agreement, but then Peggy looks serious. 

“Pegs?” Bucky puts a hand on her arm in question. It’s happened a few times during dinner, but he just assumed she was thinking about Eleanor.

“You all know that at some point we’re going to be fighting alongside other people if the threat is big enough.” They all nod and grow just as serious as she is because it is a fear that they will be found out. “The new uniforms with the goggles and masks are wonderful, but we still have to communicate with each other.” She looks up determined. “We have to start using codenames or someone will put together who we are.”

Monty sniggers. “Well half of us are named James, so that would be confusing enough.” The table chuckles at that and then Steve looks up grinning.

“Oh no, I know that look.” Steve elbows Bucky. 

Steve leans in to get a kiss and Bucky pouts at the elbow, but acquiesces and gives him the kiss. “What if we just went with that?”

Morita looks up confused. “Man, what are you talking about?”

Steve’s eyes twinkle and Bucky chuckles lowly. “Did you know the equivalent of James in Gaelic is Seamus?” 

Peggy waves her hand as she’s taking another drink. “ Oh, hell no, Steven. What the hell will you call me then?”

Denier cuts his eyes over at Steve. “We could just call you Cap.”

Steve bursts with laughter, nodding furiously. “YES!” There’s a look from the others making sure that he’s really okay with it and not just covering any hurt that might cause. Looking up, he catches Peggy’s eyes. “What? OH…I think it’s perfect and the rest of you drunk assholes need to stop worrying that I have issue with Peggy being our leader.”

There’s more laughing and Gabe’s hand hits the table. “That’s settled, we all need to pick a variation of James.” He stops and giggles more. “This is going to get so confusing.”

Peggy raises her glass and everyone joins her. “My darlings, we are professionals, we will be fine!” Everyone breaks out in laughter again and Peggy blows a raspberry at them.   


Howard calls them into the control room in early May. Maria is there with him and both look distressed. “What’s going on?” Peggy goes to the display and looks over everything. Steve stands next to her because she’s their leader, but Steve is still their tactical genius. The screen above the table is displaying some very weird shit. 

“What are we looking at, Howard?” Steve’s looking at a man in green with gold horns telling a group of people to kneel.

They watch as an old man stands, confronting the man in green and gold. The staff the man with horns is holding is now pointed at the old man and just as he fires some kind of energy from it a quinjet banks in from the east and raises a shield around the old man. It fires a repulsor at the man with horns and it knocks him back. Standing again, he fires the same energy at the quinjet, but whoever is flying it is good and banks right to avoid being hit.

Loud music blasts and Iron Man flies in. Maria reaches out taking Howard’s hand. The man with horns gets up like he’s going to attack, but Iron Man fires his repulsors and the man goes down. He raises his hands and the Commandos watch as Iron Man takes him into custody. 

“This happened a few hours ago in Germany. It looks like they have it under control.” Howard looks up and Peggy looks over at Steve.

“Thoughts?” Steve replays what he just saw.

“It was too easy. Something else is going on. Who was in the jet?” Howard taps the screen and brings up a striking red-headed woman.

“This is Natalia Romanova or Natasha Romanov, better known as Black Widow. She and a few others,” Howard taps a few times and five more photos come up, “are what Director Fury is calling the Avenger Initiative.”

All of them lean into the table swiping through information on each of the pictures their seeing. “How did you get this information, Howard?” Peggy looks intrigued.

“Well, that wasn’t me. That was my lovely wife.” He looks over at Maria.

Maria throws the back of her hand up to her forehead, fluttering her eyes. “ Oh, Director Fury, thank you so much for seeing me. I’m so worried about Tony and his obsession with this Iron Man thing.” She looks over at the group, smirking. “We’ve had Fury’s computer hacked for a while because he needed to ‘talk down’ the mother of one of his targets for this Initiative.”

“This is how you’ve kept us from getting caught. You knew where SHIELD was going to be when we went on missions.” Bucky looks over in awe. “I don’t care what anyone says, Maria is the strongest Commando.” There’s laughter and Maria  inclines her head at Bucky and he goes over and takes her hand, kissing it.

“Alright everyone, let’s see what they’re working with.” They start going through the roster of these people called Avengers. As they peruse through the files, there’s a ding in the system. “MOANa darling, what is that red flag?” Peggy looks at what’s been marked and looks over at Steve. “Oh dear.”

Everyone looks up and Steve blinks because he can’t be seeing this right. “There’s a new Cap.” It’s not that it bothers him, he just hasn’t seen the shield since taking the plane down. They left it on the plane for a reason, but he just didn’t expect to see it again. “They must have found the plane.”

“It would seem so.” Howard watches Steve’s face carefully.

Steve looks over at Peggy and nods. “Alright everyone, back to work. Let’s go through what we have.”

They don’t need to talk about Tony because they’ve all kept a close eye on the kid since he became Iron Man. He’s a genius, that much is a given, but he’s also a risk taker. Howard chuckles. “They originally wanted to exclude him from the Avengers Initiative because of his recklessness, but Fury reconsidered a few days ago when Clint Barton was taken.”

Gabe takes over from there. “Clinton Francis Barton, codename Hawkeye, because the guy never misses, but get this…he uses a bow and arrows!” There’s laughter. “Working with Tony and he uses a bow and arrows.” He whistles. “Guys he may be my new hero though. Raised by an alcoholic mother, he and his brother ran away to the circus. Once the ring master realized Barton’s  gift, he became a main attraction. That’s where Fury found him and recruited him to SHIELD. And when I say this guy never misses, that’s no joke.”

“But he’s disappeared, correct?” Peggy looks over and Gabe flips through a few screens until he comes across some footage from a SHIELD base that was loaded onto Fury’s computer. 

“Oh hell, look at this.” He shows the footage and the guy with horns touches Barton in the chest and suddenly the good guy is working for the bad guy. “Shit, that’s going to be a problem.”

Peggy watches it again. “So, these Avengers are one man down.”

“Yeah, and Black Widow isn’t going to like this situation.” Everyone looks over at Jim. “She’s ex-KGB from something called the Red Room. Apparently, they were all girls taken and trained from the time they were little into the best assassins in the world.” He points up to the screen where Natasha’s picture is. “She was their best, but Barton brought her in and she started working for Fury. No one seems to know if they’re romantically involved, but all bets seem to be on the side that they are. She’s not going to let him go down.”

“That could get messy for them.” There are nods. Peggy looks around. “Who’s next?”

Denier jumps in and looks a little too gleeful. “Next is Dr. Bruce Banner.” 

“Oh, I’ve heard of him. He’s brilliant.” Howard leans forward in curiosity. “But why is he an Avenger?”

Denier grins wickedly. “He seems to have a skin condition.” Everyone looks confused and he brings up the photos. Hulk is seen smashing through Hell’s Kitchen a few years back. “It seems that the only people that know that Dr. Banner is actually the Hulk are certain members of the government and a few of Nick Fury’s most trusted co-workers.”

“I don’t want to get on the wrong side of that guy.” Steve leans over, kissing Bucky’s cheek.

“I’ll protect you, sweetheart.” Dum Dum and a few others make gagging noises.

Peggy looks up at the screen and blinks a few times. “Am I reading this right?”

Monty sniggers. “That you are, my dear. That’s Thor and I do mean,  _ the _ Thor. He comes from someplace called Asgard and does, in fact, carry a hammer. He’s a real-life god. A few years  ago, he was sent to Earth by his father Odin.” He looks up at the team. “You can’t make this stuff up. He met an Agent Phillip Coulson and later Fury. His agreement is that when he’s on Earth he helps out when needed.” He looks up again. “I guess he’s needed now because the last intel on him is that he’s here.”

Howard gets up and starts swiping through everything and gets to the last one. “And last, but certainly not least, Brock Rumlow, AKA Captain America. Newly assigned to the shield by Secretary Alexander Pierce the head of the World Security Council.” He looks up at Steve. “He’s got friends in very high places.” He keeps scanning and clears his throat. “Rumlow was part of Strike Team Alpha until last week when Pierce promoted him.”

Steve looks confused. “Then why wasn’t he in Germany earlier?”

There are some nods from the others. Howard quirks an eyebrow. “You’re not going to like this, but Captain America didn’t go because he was busy shaking hands with the President.” Steve stiffens and Bucky reaches over, rubbing his back.

_ ‘Baby, it’s okay. This isn’t your fight.’ _

_ ‘I have a right to be upset. I never would have done that and leave my team out there alone.’ _

Bucky finally speaks out loud. “We’re your team and you’d never leave  us; we all know that.”

Peg comes over, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Steven, you’re always going to feel a connection to that shield, but it isn’t you anymore. Don’t get me wrong, darling, we’re always going to have a little part of each of us that thinks of you as Cap, but they must have chosen him for a reason.”

Steve glares at the screen, then relaxes. “Yeah, you’re right.”

MOANa beeps again and Howard looks up to see new information coming through. “Oh boy, this is just great. That guy with the horns, he’s Thor’s brother, Loki. And he just escaped custody.” 

“MOANa love, where are the Avengers?” Peggy walks over to look at the screen.

“Ma’am, it would appear that there’s been a breach on Helicarrier 64. The Avengers are scattered and the airship has been damaged.”

“Where’s Tony? MOANa, where’s my son?” They get a visual on screen of Tony trying to get a downed engine up and running again. “Jesus! Howard!”

“MOANa, access their system and I don’t care if you have to alert everyone on that carrier, but get me access!” Howard holds Maria against him as they watch Tony try to get the turbine running again. If there was someone there to flip the breaker, it would be fine, but he’s alone out there.

As soon as he has access to the carrier’s systems Howard starts inputting information. The team gathers around, lending the only support than can: a hand here, a light squeeze to a shoulder there. He waits until he knows that Tony has the turbine up to speed and then flips the breaker just long enough for his son to get out of the way. Once he’s clear, Howard turns the breaker back on, sighing and hugging Maria.

“Where the hell was help for him? Why was he all alone doing that?” Gabe looks over at the heat signatures and there is one near what’s left of the engine room. 

He points to the signature. “Someone was there.” They all look and even though they can’t tell who it is, it’s obvious that someone knew Tony needed help and didn’t lift a finger.

Tony makes his way back into the carrier and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Bucky looks at the screen. “MOANa, locate the other Avengers.” He looks at everyone else. “We might have a situation with that Loki guy loose.” He looks over at Peggy and remembers her fear that night in the restaurant. It looks like they’re about to test out fighting alongside another team.

“We don’t know where he’s headed. It could be anywhere.” Dum Dum looks up at the screen. “MOANa, track the bastard and if he shows his face again, let us know.”

It isn’t Loki’s position that sets the alarm off, but Tony’s flight path. There’s a Quinjet on his tail and the group runs back into the control room. “He’s headed to New York. If I know my son, he’s figured something out and knows what’s going on.” Maria starts inputting data and gets a trajectory for Iron Man. “He’s headed to the Tower.”

Peggy looks at the team and she seems broader, more like a glowing beacon. “Suit up. We’re not letting Tony do this alone.”

Howard and Maria head into the change room with them. Gabe’s hand lands on her shoulder. “Are you sure you want to be part of this?”

Howard stops and watches his wife. With years of fight and weapons training, he knows his wife can handle it, but if she doesn’t really want to be part of this, he won’t blame her. “That maniac is coming into our city and our son isn’t going to do this with an untried team.” Everyone stops to admire her determination and love for her son.

“Alright gents, let’s get ourselves together and leave the women to figure out what to do next.” Tim kisses his wife’s cheek and the group heads in to change.

Their new uniforms are still black, covering them neck to toe. They’re all dressed exactly the same and that’s to throw off anyone that tries to figure out who they are. The material is something new that Tony’s been working with that Maria ‘barrowed’ from JARVIS and added to MOANa. She filtered some of the material away from Stark Industries to Howard and soon the group had uniforms that took very little damage in intense fight situations. Because Maria has a flair for design, she made sure that it was functional as well as attractive. It looks more like black leather than the actual material it’s made from, but she told all of them that they weren’t going out wearing something that looked like a skin tight cat suit. The goggles can be used in light or dark environments and the face masks filter the air in case of air pollutants, covering the mouth and nose. After gearing up, they go to the weapons hold. 

Steve’s always impressed with how many guns and knives Bucky can fit on his person. It’s concerning, but also a little hot. Wrapping his arms around Bucky from behind, he leans in to kiss his cheek before his husband puts the mask on.  _ ‘You are so sexy like this.’ _

Instead of answering in thought, Bucky looks up grinning. “You have a fetish I should know about?”

Steve barks a laugh. “Yeah, you. You’re my fetish.”

“We do not need to hear _ that _ !” Peggy comes around the corner. “You two are getting a time out when we get home.”

Bucky winks at her. “Together? Please say it’s together.” She rolls her eyes and they head to the warehouse for the jet.

They keep the jet in stealth mode and do one final check of their weapons, but they all stop what they’re doing when they see what’s happening on the streets. “Aliens.” Monty looks back at everyone else, smirking. “Ladies and Gents, we’ve lived long enough to see an alien invasion.”

Peggy looks at the portal and sees another Quinjet trying to take out the aliens on flying scooters. “Monty, stay on the jet and help the other one out.” Bucky grabs the sniper rifle from the safe and adds more ammo to his pack. Monty nods and brings the jet down so it’s hovering over the street. The back lowers and the team leaps to the street. Civilians looking on, filming the team all in black, faces covered by masks and eyes covered in goggles. “We have a job to do and I expect everyone to come out of this alive. No distractions. You get hurt, hurt them back. You get killed, walk it off. Don’t forget, codenames only.” The team snorts at Peggy’s words and break into teams of two, except for Peggy, who goes to assess the ground situation to give the others orders.

Monty comes over the com. “Channel 5 is secure.” The teams adjust their coms.

They watch as the other jet goes down. Peggy gets to high ground. “Hawkeye and Black Widow are on the ground now.” Within minutes Thor and Captain America are also on the ground. “I must say, I’m feeling very good about this Thor person.” She watches as the no longer mythical god spins the hammer and takes off into the sky.

As soon as the team starts firing on the aliens, they become targets and the aliens start attacking. Bucky takes a position on the roof of one of the buildings and Steve stays within a few rooftops to keep him safe. It’s times like this that Steve misses the shield, but also understands why he can’t use anything like that. He really does love watching the team move and fight because vampires move like nothing else on the planet. 

“My god these things are ugly.” They all hear Bucky snort at Dum Dum’s comment. “Why can’t they look like those blue people on Star Trek?” There’s raucous laughter over that.

Monty does a fly by and mows down several scooters. “Chaps, I believe these creatures are getting annoyed with me.”

Peggy shakes her head. These morons are her morons, but they’re still morons. “Gentlemen, can we keep our heads in the game?”

Morita pipes up after that question. “Speaking of heads, what happened to Frannie’s unicorn costume?” Peggy just rolls her eyes because he did just blow up a whole group of aliens without doing any damage to the surrounding buildings. And she understands that this is the way they’ve always been. 

Bucky figures out quickly that the easiest way to take these ugly things out is to shoot them between the eyes. It would be difficult, but he’s exceptionally good at what he does. Steve leaps over to another building just as Clint Barton, Hawkeye himself, is dropped on a building two blocks away. Bucky takes out three more aliens in quick succession.  _ ‘I have a sniper companion.’ _

Steve looks over at his husband and sees him take out two more aliens.  _ ‘You need me? How close is he?’ _

_ ‘He’s about two blocks away and hasn’t spotted me yet. Just keep your eyes on me in case I have to move positions.’  _ Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve’s next comment.

_ ‘I thought you  _ _ knew; _ _ I always have my eyes on you.’ _

_ ‘Pervert.’  _ Steve’s laughter rings across the rooftop. He also hears Steve grunt as he smashes an alien’s face in and throws it off the building. “Juan, we felt bad for the unicorn costume, so we,” there’s a pause as Steve snaps the neck of another alien, “so we went out and got a pumpkin costume for Joe.”

Bucky laughs and continues the story while taking down six more aliens. “We thought it would be cute, but Frannie thought she was a ball and carried her around all day in her mouth.”

There’s a squeak and everyone turns towards Peggy’s position thinking she’s in trouble. “Is that why Eleanor came home telling me that Frannie was a bad dog?”

The laughter from the team pervades the area and Bucky does a sweep of the area and sees that Hawkeye is trying to figure out where the other sniper is located. “Hawkeye knows I’m here.”

“Cap, orders?” Steve scales down the side of a building and starts throwing aliens to the street below. “These guys don’t do well from heights.” Another one hits the ground and splats. Bucky snorts.

Gabe, runs into a group of them and pulls a knife, stabbing five in the back. “They don’t do well with their spines severed either.”

That’s when something that looks like a flying whale comes out of the portal. Peggy looks up, dropping her fangs and knows that her eyes start to glow. Thank god for the goggles. “Gentlemen and Ladies, we have a bigger issue.”

They all look up. Maria sees it go towards Iron Man and looks at her husband. “Ivan, give me a lift.” Howard squats, cupping his hands. As Iron Man flies by with the ‘whale’ on his trail, Howard tosses Maria and she latches hold of the bottom.

Bucky looks through his scope laughing. “Jamie is my new hero.” Maria rips the aliens from the side of the ‘whale’ and throws them off, while planting explosives as she goes. Once she’s made her way along the side, she jumps, landing in a crouch on the roof of a building and tapping the com. “Juan, blow it.” Morita chuckles and hits the button. The ‘whale’ makes a screaming noise, tilts to the side and goes down.

Bucky chuckles as Steve, who’d gone further out, makes his way back to the building with Bucky. He’s been jumping from roof to roof keeping the aliens away from his husband. “You think I should make my way over to your human counterpart and keep his back clear?”

Bucky gives a thumbs up and takes down four more scooters. Not able to help himself, before Steve makes another round, he comes over to Bucky, leaning in. “You’re beautiful when you’re killing hostile aliens.”

“All the damn time.” But Bucky can’t help the smile behind his mask. His husband is a dork.

“My friends, I feel that I’m missing all the fun.” Monty watches as another ‘whale’ comes out of the portal. He flies in between two buildings, taking out aliens hanging off the sides.

“Cap, where do you want us?” Dum Dum calls into the com because there’s an upsurge of aliens coming out of the portal with the ‘whale’ thing.

Peggy leaps into the air and pulls a scooter right out of the sky. “Everyone to me. We need to regroup. Jakko, you stay in the sky and James, you stay up high. Everyone else, meet me on the bridge.”

Steve looks back over at Bucky and doesn’t want to leave him unguarded.  _ ‘My angel, you keep yourself safe.’ _

_ ‘I promise I’ll be fine.’ _ Bucky looks over where he knows that Steve is still watching him.  _ ‘Don’t worry, as long as I can feel you, I’ll always be safe.’ _

When they get to the bridge, Peggy is on top of a car telling the police what to do. When one of them asks why they should listen to her, she’s attacked by an alien and reaches up, snapping its neck. The police immediately start barking her orders. Turning, she looks at her team. “We have to close that portal. Jakko, check the Tower and see if there’s anything you can do.” They watch as the jet heads up the side of Stark Tower. “The rest of you, I need you to stay paired off and help get the people into the subway. Kill anything that gets in your way.”

The police watch as the teams move off at a speed that isn’t human. “What the hell are you?”

Peggy turns back around. “We’re what’s standing between you and this war.” Turning back, she looks at Steve. “Seamus, stay with me.”

“You got it, Cap.” She jumps off the car as the Avengers land on the bridge. They stand facing out, looking up at the aliens. “Is this their big hero pose?” The team cackles, but sticks to their missions.

JARVIS guides Tony through the buildings as the whale thing is apparently trying to catch him and eat him. “Uh…guys, I can’t shake this thing.” He doesn’t get a response, but then suddenly the thing is crashing into buildings. “J, what just happened?”

‘Sir, it would seem that there is another team on the ground. One of theirs was able to destroy the…’

“Big ugly thing trying to eat me?”

‘Yes sir.’

“Well, I guess if they’re fighting the aliens too then they’re friendlies.” Iron Man swings around a building and heads back to the bridge. “Talk to me people. What’s happening?”

Clint, positioned on a building and firing arrows faster than he can think, pipes in. “We’ve got another sniper up high. I can’t get eyes on him, but whoever these people are, they’re damn good.”

Captain America chimes in. “How many are there? We can’t have random wannabes getting in our way.”

Natasha watches one of the ‘random wannabes’ run up the side of a building, while snapping the necks of alien after alien. “Well Captain, I would say these people have training and possibly enhancements.”

“I don’t give a shit what they have, they’re in our way.” Captain America rams the shield into the chest of one of the alien foot-soldiers and it barely moves it. He’s punched in the chest and sent flying backwards.

Thor lands next to him, offering a hand. “It would seem they are better equipped than you are, Captain.” 

With that, Thor takes off again. “I’m just getting my footing.”

All of the Avengers roll their eyes at that. Clint can say for sure that he doesn’t like this new guy. He doesn’t know where Fury found him, but he’s nothing but talk. All the way here in the quinjet, he bad-mouthed every member of the team and got a little fresh with Natasha. Clint knows his friend can take care of herself and when she didn’t say anything, the  _ good  _ captain took it as a win. The archer knows for sure that it wasn’t, but instead it was Natasha building an arsenal of things to hold against the guy until she can kick his ass.

Tony doesn’t have time for this idiot and flies over where Natasha is, landing next to her. The helmet flips up and they watch as, what they can only assume is the leader of the renegade group, gives orders to the police and they start evacuating buildings and putting up a perimeter. “I don’t know who they are, but they’re better organized than we are.”

Natasha gives that signature ‘duh’ look. “It would help if we had a leader.”

“You have a leader, sweetheart.” Natasha shakes her head at the idiot with the shield and shoots more aliens to make herself feel better. 

Tony puts a hand on her arm. “We’re going to talk to Fury when this is over.” Nat nods and Tony takes off again. He sees the renegade jet head up the side of the Tower. “Thor, head to the Tower and see what’s happening up there. Natasha, make your way up there too.”

“Stark, you need to let me give the orders.” Captain America gets knocked down by another alien and if not for Bucky would be dead.

“As soon as you learn how to handle that shield, I’ll be happy to let you lead this merry band.” There’s cursing coming through the comm and Tony stops listening. “J, can you cut him from the channel and make it look like his comm stopped working?”

‘Of course, sir.’

“Oh, and scan for another comm, there’s no way that other group isn’t communicating with each other. I want to talk to their leader.” Withing seconds, he’s hearing the other group. “What the hell?”

Steve watches Howard and Maria do a beautiful dance of fighting back-to-back. “Ivan, you and Jamie need to enter a dance contest.” There’s laughter and bickering about who would lead.

Peggy leaps over the back of one of the aliens, grabbing its head and twisting. “Eleanor asked me last week if Jakobus could teach her to cook. What do you all think about having another cooking contest?”

Dum Dum barks a laugh. “I’m fine with that, but I’m not using James and Seamus’s apartment again. Those two are offending my delicate sensibilities.”

“THAT WAS ONE TIME AND YOU’RE THE ONES THAT CAME BARGING IN.” They’re several giggles. “Anyway, I’m allowed to have sex with my husband anywhere I want in our apartment!” Bucky huffs. “Seamus, you’re supposed to defend my honor.”

“Really? Cause what I really want to do is sully your reputation.” Steve grins towards the building that Bucky is on, grinning because he knows that he’s being glared at.  _ ‘I love you.’ _

_ ‘I love you too, asshole.’ _

Monty jumps into the conversation. “My friends, we have a problem on top of the tower and you also have company on the comms.”

Peggy holds up her hand in a fist and everyone goes quiet. “Who am I speaking to?”

Tony knows he’s been made, but was finding their conversation interesting. It’s obvious that whoever they are, they’ve known each other for a long time. They’re friends, maybe even family. The woman in charge talks with a posh British accent and Tony finds that interesting. “This is Iron Man and who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?”

“You can call me Cap.” Tony snorts and Peggy  is pretty sure she knows why. “Oh yes, you have one of those already, yes?”

Tony snorts again. “Not really, but he sure thinks he is.” Tony and Peggy talk through a collaboration between teams. “I must warn  you; my men will not take orders from your Captain.”

“That’s okay, we don’t either.” They make a plan and Bucky moves from the roof he’s on to create a net with Clint Barton. Steve watches how Barton gives Bucky a sloppy salute and Bucky bows to the archer. Monty leaves the Tower when Thor arrives and starts a fight with his brother. 

“Chaps, it would seem the God of Thunder and his brother are having a family squabble.” The jet takes a hit and Monty has to land and join the rest of the team. Tony taps into the comm of the renegades and feeds it through JARVIS to the rest of his team.

He watches how they fight and how they never question what their leader says to them. “I want all of you to take down the flying whale. Juan, make sure they’re armed with the charges. Seamus, take Jimbo and get everyone else on that whale.”

Captain America comes around a corner hitting aliens with the shield, he never throws it and Steve just watches in disbelief because this guy doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing. “Just a damn minute lady, this team is mine and you have…”

Peggy reaches over, ripping the shield from his hands. “You have no team. You don’t know the first thing about the title that you carry, so if I were you, I’d shut up and do what you’re told.” A scooter comes overhead, and Peggy throws the shield like she used to do during the war, when Steve would let her practice with it, and it cuts the thing in half. It comes back and Steve catches it. The Commandos look over at him and he’s staring down at it.

“Now, you have your orders.” The Commandos run off and Peggy heads back into the fight. Rumlow watches her go and looks down at the shield that the other one dropped at his feet. Picking it up, he heads after them because he’s not going to let some British bitch tell his team what to do. He rounds the corner and is smacking an alien with it when the shield flies from his hands and lands several yards away.

There are at least six of the enemies coming at him and he’s unarmed now. A man comes running out of a building and picks the shield up, throwing it, he takes out three of the six. Catching the shield when it comes back, the man throws it again, taking out two others. One of the people in black comes back around the corner and picks the shield up, throwing it and taking out the last one with a clean cut through the alien’s neck. He looks at the other man, the one from the building. “You handle it well.”

The guy offers his hand. “Yeah, but I bet the real Captain America could have done it in one. I’m Sam Wilson.”

Steve takes the man’s hand. “The real Captain America would have been honored to have you use it though.”

Rumlow comes over, taking the shield. “That’s mine.”

Sam looks over at him. “Then you might want to learn how to use it.”

The man in black snorts. “I’m Seamus, by the way. When this is over, you should come to Brooklyn and have a drink with us.” Steve leaves them after that and the man goes back into the building to protect the people inside.

The Battle of New York ends when Iron Man flies a missile into the portal and almost loses his life. He’s called the hero of the day, but is quick to give credit to the rest of the team. He also thanks the renegades. Once everyone one is relatively recovered, the Avengers, minus Captain America, sit around the Tower, eating pizza and relaxing.

“You know what I find interesting about that group?” Everyone looks over at Natasha. “All of their names are some variation of James, except their Captain.”


End file.
